Michael Annett

When Nationwide Series races get to the beating and banging and spinning out and conflicts and pit-road confrontations, other drivers would be wise to not try to start anything with Michael Annett.

Annett once led his tier one AAA hockey team, Team Illinois, in penalty minutes. In fact, he led the whole league.

Michael Annett, enforcer?

"No, actually, my defensive partner was the enforcer on the team," Annett said with a laugh. "He was huge, so I had fun picking fights and starting everything and then he'd come in and finish up and take care of business."

It's a strange juxtaposition, the people involved in hockey and racing. Annett says he's 5-9, 180 pounds, "about five inches too short and 50 pounds too light to play in the NHL." But in the NASCAR garage, that puts him at the high end of the body size scale.

Jason Leffler is listed at 5-3, 130 pounds. Justin Allgaier is listed at 5-6, 125 pounds.

"That's what I find so appealing about auto racing," Annett said. "It doesn't matter how big or how small you are. Growing up in the sport of hockey, I was always too small. They'd tell me to get to the gym and put on more muscle and mass. Now in racing, nobody really looks at that.

"Once you're in the car, we all weigh 3,400 pounds."

He was a late-comer to the sport, having played hockey through his teens. He didn't get started in racing until after he hit 18 and faced a future in college and an office job. So he got into racing, which his family had long been involved with.

Annett was born just days before the first race he attended, the Knoxville Nationals. His family had long been the owner and sponsor for the car driven by Sammy Swindell.

So it was an easy move for him into racing, and his climb through the ranks was an accelerated one.

In 2007, he made four starts in the ARCA series. He won the pole in his debut, at Iowa, and finished third. He also qualified third and finished in the top 10 at Nashville and Gateway. In his fourth career start, he won at Talladega and became the first driver to win an ARCA race in a Toyota.

In 2008, he raced ARCA as well as in the Truck Series and made his Nationwide debut. In 2009, he finished 10th in the Nationwide points in his first full season.

In retrospect, he says he thinks he's done things the right way.

"People thought, 'You have a sponsor, you can jump into any series you want,' and we didn't," Annett said. "I didn't feel that would be right and I wouldn't be earning my keep if we did that.

"We made sure if I joined a new team, we knew w e were comfy with the equipment and everything was calculated. We didn't get into a situation we thought would hurt my career."

This year, he's 13th in the points for Germain Racing, but he has just one top-10 finish. He said the Nationwide Series is the most exciting racing going, with multiple people having a chance to win each week.

Annett says it's been an adjustment for him, going from being one of the top dogs in ARCA to being one of the pack aiming for the front in Nationwide.

"Showing up in ARCA, I knew it was either myself or Scott Speed or Ricky Stenhouse [Jr.] or Justin Allgaier or Frank Kimmel ... it was going to be one of us," Annett said. "You go into a Nationwide race and you've gotta beat 10 Cup guys and five of them are in the Cup Chase, so it's definitely a challenge.

"Last year was humbling but it made me a lot better driver and you definitely jump at the opportunity when you do have a good car to win the race. You have to take those when they come."

Annett has no timeline for when he hopes to make the next move, up to the Cup Series, but said he hopes to be able to be one of the guys who runs in both series. He says, "If you're making laps, you're learning."

But when that happens, he'll have to give up his Sundays on the lake with his friends. He counts Brian Scott, Reed Sorenson and Steve Wallace among his closest friends in the series, and said they spend Sundays on a boat on the lake.

"We don't like talking about racing on Sundays," Annett said. "We just go out on the lake and get away from it. Then, when I go to the shop on Monday, I'm ready for the next week."

Annett, a self-proclaimed mama's boy, is the youngest of seven children. He loves being outdoors, and says if he had a perfect day, cost notwithstanding, he'd do a mix of beach and mountains.

"I love the Bahamas and going down to the Atlantis," he said. "If I could wake up there, with a view of the ocean, then go to Vail and ski at night and have a campfire in the mountains, that would pretty much be perfect."

Just don't try to tell him no.