NASCAR Nationwide Series

“There’s a whole bunch of added pressure on myself, but I’m a competitor,” Scott says. “I played a lot of sports growing up and I thrive off competition. Pressure is something that I’m used to and I actually thrive off it.

“I love having pressure on me. I like having the ball in my court and I kind of like to have moments where it’s put up or shut up. That’s definitely what I have next year, and I’m looking forward to it.”

In 2010, Scott finished second in the Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year standings and was 14th in the overall series championship. The Idaho native drove the first 28 races of the 35-race season in the No. 11 Toyota for Braun Racing, but when Braun Racing and Turner Motorsports merged in late September, Scott found himself momentarily on the outside looking in.

He quickly landed with RAB Racing for the remainder of the 2010 campaign, but still wasn’t sure what his future held. And then at Texas Motor Speedway in November, Scott got what he called “a Christmas gift for life” when J.D. Gibbs announced that the now three-time defending owner’s championship Joe Gibbs Racing team would be adding a third full-time Nationwide Series program for 2011 and that Scott would be the driver of the No. 11 Toyota Camry.

“At first, I didn’t know what was going on and I thought it was going to be a negative move for the end of 2010 when the Braun/Turner deal happened and the parting of the ways,” Scott explains. “It was a blessing in disguise, because ultimately it allowed for an opportunity that Joe Gibbs Racing had to come up and to be able to put myself into a lot more successful of a system and a professional organization that has room for me to grow and has a future down the road if I can succeed and do well.”

Since arriving at JGR, Scott has quickly begun to see why the team has had so much success.

“They’re very methodical about what they do,” he says. “They’ve got very good pieces to put on the car and then they’ve just got good people working on it. When they show up at the racetrack, they have a game plan, they’re prepared, they know what they’re trying to accomplish and they don’t let themselves get out in right field like we did throughout the course of last year so many times.

“You get panicked, you get hurried and you get out in right field or you get going down a path that ultimately makes you worse instead of better and you just confuse yourself. They don’t do that. They’re disciplined, they’re prepared and it shows in their performance on the racetrack.”

Of course, the move to a new team also means working with a new crew chief. Earlier this month, the team announced that Scott would be working with Kevin Kidd, who helmed the No. 20 Nationwide team this season.

Everybody knows that one of the keys to success for any team at any level in NASCAR is the relationship between the driver and his crew chief. The sooner that both Scott and Kidd really get to know each other and understand how each other works, the better off they’ll be, so they’ve already begun putting in the work to build that vital relationship.

“With every driver/crew chief relationship, it takes time,” Scott says. “Luckily, I’ve known that he was going to be my crew chief for a little bit and really we’ve been working on our relationship this whole offseason, whether it’s going to lunch or dinner or doing some team building stuff.

“One thing Joe Gibbs Racing does is they do these personality profiles that you take and it kind of tells you about yourself and effective communication tools on how to deal with you or what works best for your set personality. We’ve both taken it and then we both sat down – we joked and called it a ‘marriage counselor’ – we sat down with somebody that interprets that and tells us both how our personalities are and the most successful ways for us to deal with each other and handle situations and communicate and stuff like that.

“We’ve been doing a lot of stuff to speed up the process. When they get some cars built, we’re planning on going down and doing some tests and really just working on stuff to see how I communicate. The tests are not only to work on our equipment, but really to work on our relationship.”

Scott feels fortunate that he already has what he believes to be a good relationship with all three of JGR’s Sprint Cup Series drivers. Of course, two of those drivers – Kyle Busch and Joey Logano – will also frequently be his Nationwide Series teammates in 2011.

“I considered them friends of mine before this whole deal ever happened,” Scott says. “I talked a lot with Kyle. Kyle became involved when we owned Xpress Motorsports (in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series) with purchasing a lot of assets and stuff from that, so we’ve worked together on a business-type relationship. And we play paintball together, so we’ve just hung out and built our relationship on other grounds.

“I had the same deal with Joey. I’ve hung out and I’ve known Joey for a long time from back in the Hooters Pro Cup days and stuff like that, so I have pretty well established relationships with all those guys, even with Denny, doing stuff with him out in California and hanging out. I think I have more access now because I’m their teammate and I think they’ll help me out more now, but it was something that I luckily already had in place.”

What Scott also likely has going for him will be the team’s focus on him as its lone Nationwide Series championship contender in 2011. While NASCAR has yet to announce its plans, speculation is rampant that full-time Sprint Cup Series drivers will no longer be eligible to win the Nationwide Series title. That would put Scott in the catbird seat.

“I know the way Joe Gibbs Racing is looking at it is, I’ll be their driver in the Nationwide Series that has a chance to contend for the championship,” Scott says. “I know that’s something that’s really important to Joe Gibbs Racing is to have somebody that’s there week in, week out, to have some identity and some foothold in the series that can go try to capture those championships that mean so much to them and that they’ve been able to get in the last couple of years.

“I look at it the same way. I think that the Nationwide guys are going to be the ones contending for the championship. I think with the support of Joe Gibbs Racing, the crew chief, Kevin Kidd, and everybody and Toyota, I think that we’ll have a great chance to do it.”

So as the 2011 season rapidly approaches, what are Scott’s expectations and how have they changed from previous years?

“My expectations are much higher, just knowing the equipment and the performance aspect is going to be there,” Scott says. “I know that a huge portion of that will be on me to perform, because everything will be there to do it.

“I have huge expectations for myself. I don’t really have tremendous expectations of the team, because I feel like the team will be there. It’s more expectations on myself to succeed, to run up front, to win races and to contend for the championship. I guess you’d say that those are my expectations.”

And with those expectations comes pressure. Scott wouldn’t want it any other way.