Brad Paisley had a dream come true last weekend. On Sunday, Brad not only performed at the Daytona International Speedway as part of the pre-race events for the 53rd running of the Daytona 500, but Brad also got to set the pace for the race. It was actually Brad behind the wheel of the pace car, and he jokes that his racing school diploma “has actually served me now way more than my actual college diploma has.” But it wasn’t a totally smooth ride, as NASCAR favorite Jeff Gordon bumped his car into the one Brad was driving. Luckily, Brad survived the ride, and his fear of wrecking the field did not come true. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Brad is closing in on the top of the charts with “This Is Country Music,” the first smash single and title track to his new album, This Is Country Music, set to release on May 24!
• The digital single for “This Is Country Music” is available now! You can also get an immediate download of the song when you pre-order the album at www.ThisIsCountryMusic.com!

  Brad Paisley describes the greeting he got from Jeff Gordon while driving the pace car at the Daytona 500. (:34)
“One of the greatest things I’ll ever do. I’m a race fan and a car fan, and so to look in my rear view mirror and see Jeff Gordon, and then the entire rest of the drivers following me around that track three or four times was…you just never think you’re ever gonna see something like that, let alone get bumped. I got bumped by Jeff. Every time we’d go onto the turns, sort of away from the grandstands, you’d feel boom, boom, boom, and then Jeff was bumping me in the back. And he told me he was gonna bump me when we were going around, and I’ve never felt that before.”

  Brad Paisley thinks he got to drive the pace car because of his racing school experience. (:13)
“I have done racing schools, so maybe that’s why they let me do it. I don’t know. But…and I do have a diploma or two from a couple of tracks, which has actually served me now way more than my actual college diploma has.”

  Brad Paisley had one fear on Sunday as Jeff Gordon was bumping his car. (:13)
“You can imagine what a disaster it would be if Jeff’s bumping me, and I spin out, and you’re on the pace car lap, and there’s a twenty-car pile up. That’d be unbelievable. You would never…I would never live that…I would be like…it’d be…it’d be like I’d have to just quit.”