Some things you may already know about Tanner Foust: He’s a successful professional racer. He’s the 2007 US Formula Drift champion and currently leading the 2008 championship. Foust contests the US Rally America championship and won the 2007 X-Games Rally Super Special beating action sports super star, Travis Pastrana and World Rally Championship legend, Colin McRae (RIP) in the process. Tanner was a stunt driver for Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and The Dukes of Hazard and most recently The Bourne Ultimatum — he’s the dude chasing Matt Damon in NYC. He’s also had some on-air auto show hosting experience on Speed TV’s Supercar’s Exposed and Import Tuners. Some things you don’t know: He spends a lot of time smelling cars. Tanner learned to drift in when he was 12-years-old. He’s gotten lost behind the Orange Curtain with Jeremy Clarkson and thinks a 1973 Cadillac Coupe de Ville is the perfect car for a high school kid. As you may have guessed, Tanner’s quite excited about the upcoming NBC adaptation of Top Gear. Autofiends sat down with Tanner to quiz him about the show, his co-hosts and his racing background. For the record, Tanner’s calling Eric Stromer a “car guy.” You heard it here first.

Jonny Lieberman: You just got every car guy’s dream job. What’s that like?

Tanner Foust: I’m really excited about getting started on Top Gear. I think it’s a rare situation where you get a chance to live out your car fantasies, as it were: doing some stunts, driving certain cars on certain roads around the world, etc. And than have someone else put the money up so you can make those come true.

JL: How’d you get the job? I’m asking that because I’m maybe one of three car journalists that didn’t try out for the gig. I’m just curious how you got it.

TF: The BBC went on a pretty extensive headhunt for the host and when they landed on Adam they knew they had a really good booking. He’s a great lead host for the show and obviously very opinionated and has an amazing passion for cars and he’s a gearhead throughout. So it was really finding people who matched up with Adam and who had chemistry with Adam and also had some sort of authority that they could bring to the plate, some piece of the puzzle that they filled. Adam and I get along great and so that was one reason. Probably another major reason was just the driving background that I have and the fact that I’m still actively competing in these sports gives me an opinion about cars that comes from a more race inspired, experience based angle than the other hosts.

JL: Right. So I gotta ask, are you a fan of the British show?

TF: I’m a huge fan of British Top Gear.

JL: Have you met Jeremy or Richard or James May?

TF: I spent the day with Jeremy a while ago and we got along great. In fact, we got lost in [Orange County] where the Top Gear race track is and sat in some behemoth Corvette that he’d been given for the day.

JL: Oh — that was like a Lingenfelter or something.

TF: I don’t remember what it was. It wasn’t a Lingenfetler.

JL: Callaway?

TF: It may have been a Callaway. [Ed Note: it was a Callaway] We talked for quite awhile and I have to say honestly it was very enlightening to get a feel of how the shows are put together from behind the scenes and to hear about that perspective from Jeremy. Obviously, being the host of that show and also someone who’s been involved with it for so long and evolved with the show for so long, to have him impart wisdom on me while we try to jump into a new Top Gear and make it look like we’ve been doing it for 10 years.

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