Speaker 3: Welcome everyone on the podcast today. We meet Chase Eliza J Scrap racing at dirt tracks in the midwest with ambitions to someday work for a top-tier NASCAR team. He tended Michigan Technological University starting in 2009 to Kane mechanical engineering degree in ecology internships at General Motors and Toyota both of these led to the dream internship at Hendrick Motorsports in 2012, following his graduation in 2014 case with her full-time as a recent Hendrick Motorsports fan of the 40 18th with Jimmy Johnson is the driver. He just finished his his full season with the team and that included 13 victories and a championship in 2016 Chase. Hope the story of dreaming big and working hard will survive an inspiration to Future Engineers pursuing their dream careers. I'd like to welcome Chase to eycc. All right, I wrote welcome to the podcast. We got Brandon on the line. How you doing, bro?

Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good. Troy about yourself

Speaker 3: doing really good man. Thursday had some successes at work today some failures and a little bit. I feel like it was unfortunate typical day as an engineer where you're having success is having failures, but hopefully learning from I don't know.

Speaker 2: Maybe I still don't know. I don't know how you quantify what you do on a daily basis since you're you're getting your Ph.D. You're working on projects, but it's different it always in my in my uneducated eyes different than what you might be doing when you were working before

Speaker 3: anything. But to me it the day today is actually pretty similar. It's solving engineering problems. Maybe I just get paid less.

Speaker 2: The Money Team

Speaker 3: request West money somehow this is some got that to work out but that's all right, you know, I think it's kind of part of being an engineer

Speaker 2: will get through it. But hopefully I guess today does get paid for the work that he does

Speaker 3: today. We're talkin to chase really really looking forward to this site a lot of interest in what goes on in and ask our world. It seems really fast, but I think there's a lot to go out there and probably really don't know what Nascar is and so it just made me to start making you just kind of walk us through. What is NASCAR stock car auto racing. I'm really originated here in the United States and is about the premier Series in United States currently with a race about 38 races a year and we race the West Coast on California Phoenix Vegas all the way on the East Coast back where I am in North Carolina race quite a bit around here all weekend or 12 events of the year or kind of like a playoff schedule similar to a football any other professional sport and then we have a final championship race is our last race of the season and basically it's four guys that are heads up and then whoever wins out race wins Championship basically

Speaker 2: nice. So it'd NASCAR chase. What are the teams composed of I don't really have a great idea that cuz I don't necessarily follow a NASCAR but we talked about Racers and drivers and give you the the team's there with I don't even is that the right words to explain a little bit.

Speaker 3: So a lot more people than are involved in this more than you probably imagine, you know, Hendrick Motorsports in particular is where I work for in currently, they employ 650 people just 414. So you have that range is all the way from engineering, you know, you have a lot of mechanical engineering some electrical engineering you have vehicle engineering which is specific to designing Parts intestine parts, and then you got Race Engineering which is the side. I'm on. Can you got marketing admin engine engineering machine shops? Dinos we have at our headquarters here in Concord North Carolina lot of people that go into making for cars go fast in a circle sport team environment. I mean from my understanding right then this is this is a team sport. Like we're in it to win it like in its it's interesting to imagine that as the job. Does it feel like that like, I mean imagine in season like when you're going to work like you're going to practice getting ready for the for the real absolutely 924-4888 and within those are numbers we have a small group that's a sign just to that car number and I'm on the 48th right now and there's a group of about fifteen of us between engineer. Crew chiefs over the wall guys to like pit crew that change tires and do all that. We become really close throughout the year, you know, you live basically on the road with those people for 38 weeks in a year from February until November to become really close with them. You know, you see them more than you seem lost your family. You have to work really close. Do you have to have a lot of respect for each other and other times that there's frustration but the best team that we've had probably since I've been working there was 2016 and just how we jailed and how everybody work well together and that is the year that we won the Championships. Definitely huge player in our sport how well you can yell as a team and work the other

Speaker 2: do you guys still like even I guess it from your perspective? Can you have a good season even if the car you're supporting doesn't win? I mean aside, can you feel like hey our team we did really good but but things just didn't work out okay with that or is it kind of like like if we don't win it's always kind of a letdown.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean that's kind of you really go out to try to win races in the ultimate goal is try to win the championship at the end of the year, but at the end of the day, there's 40 teams and there's one car that can win the championship and it's such a cyclical sport that you know, you have one year where you're on top just like any other professional sport the next year you can be at the bottom, but I still think you can take a year where you struggle this past year for examples of worst year of Jimmie Johnson's crew ever and I think at the end of the year like he was he said it's the best. He's ever felt in a race car number last eight races in the season. We didn't win any races. We weren't even in the championship hunt but just his comfort level and just seeing improvements throughout the year how well the team Ashton gel together, I think. We were all very excited to in the 2020 season already. So so yeah, I think we made a lot of games on our cars. We started the year off of what other competitors were and I think from the engineering side that's exciting because there's so much we can contribute to in the speed of the cars weather. That's body weather that's engine weather that's you know, rolling resistance with powertrain components weather that shaving off, you know, an eighth of an inch and bolts 10 bolt in the top of the car. Just try to lower the CG of the car. I feel like we really can have a hand in the outcome of the cars and all they perform so that's exciting for us. And I think at the end of this year we were really able to make things on our cars and be competitive. It sounds really interesting first. I want to I want to jump back a little bit to this idea of like this team sport mentality. I've never felt that and then just have you ever I mean, I know I feel like a team but I've never really felt. Like that kind of it's

Speaker 2: not like that. I mean I go to work with the same people every day and they're all around me. And you know, we work on the same thing and we're kind of like we're kind of a team but not like that close, but I imagine that when you're on the road with these people for the on 37 weekends out of the year that you can I get a whole different level of bonding. I feel like I found that some ways when we've done like work trips and my job where it's like, oh I get to know these people better and know them kind of outside of work on text, but then it's going back to work. You know, what the next week or whatever and we're out back ribs.

Speaker 3: Right, right. Yeah, it's it's fun because you get to go on the road with all these people and you stay in a hotel room and you know what night you're work with them all day at the racetrack and that's great. But it's such a hot, you know, fast-paced environment that you don't get to interact very often, but then you get back to the hotel room and you can go out to eat with them. You can go with different there becomes a little different cliques at times, you know, some people prefer going to these restaurants are floating between groups and we just we all get along really well. No, I just went on a cruise last week with our truck driver and his wife on her King and I just spent 38 weeks with in 10 months. I want to finish the season going to do with him and I. So, I've always loved that about work trips like this idea that I didn't have the idea. I would like the bond that you get cuz even even haven't you share a meal with someone like you don't you don't have to do that at work right. Now you made there's a good chance that you if you just went to the office and that was your job was going to the office that you wouldn't actually go like share a meal with someone. I just doing that kind of stuff like it. It just brings out other things, right? It connects that way more and I think for me maybe it's because in my job and my previous job and things maybe it's because the goal wasn't so clear. Like I feel like we're you taste like it's just like win the championship like it's it's a lot more to find the maybe in an engineer. Like what what is the current goal make make the products better run these run these TPA tests, you know, like, it's me maybe having that clear definition of this is the objective it maybe it's like you don't maybe on the speaks to leadership like in that it gives you a direction right in the in the same way. That may be a good manager who sets a good Vision does maybe such a big part of our crew chiefs basically lead the team protein as a crew chief and are typically Engineers also, And they are the leadership in the gel that holds a team together and they're the ones that try to give you a vision for the year and try to keep you motivated throughout the year. They're kind of the voice in your ear throat whole time and we recently just got a new crew chief in July. I think it was a Seer young guys 30 years old engineer him and I actually start at the same time as recently knows I'm 48 and that speaks volumes to how well we are able to master at the end of the year. Just having that leader with a vision with the confidence. He believes and every one of his guys and he tells us that all the time and is quite the compliment. Smith's quick to point out what we did. Well, you know as well as try to point out what we need to improve on. So, I think that is a huge contributor to our teamwork is that later that kerchief and I've had it before where it's been the opposite and it's Very obvious, you know, we all feed off that later. It seems like the team goes downhill quick when you don't have a strong leader. Yeah,

Speaker 2: so going from the steam then that's got I forgot my people. You said that 20 20 people enter your your team, roughly. Let's take this down then to two. What do you do on a daily basis? What is your function within that team specifically?

Speaker 3: Yep. So basically I floated in a couple different positions over the last I guess I'm going in my sixties and now I really started as a third race engineer. So basically each team has three race and then I went to a shock engineer lead shock engineer on the 48th, which is kind of a different subject. It's mostly damping in Springs and all that and then this year I just got promoted to Second race engineer, but basically our jobs as race Engineers has to provide support to the crew chief. So we did through all the data we've got several different simulation programs. We run through just on computer base and then we also have a bunch of tests where he's at the shop and we can sort through data we can go out through all kinds of stuff. Basically. Our goal is to try to come up with set ups every week trying to optimize a chassis tried Optimizer any packages try to optimize our bodies, you know, we dig allowed into the arrow data we go to the wind tunnel every week. I don't necessarily go to the wind tunnel, but we're looking for the day that the wind tunnel. Just trying to feed that. The crew chief then the crew chief tries to make a decision based off of what we're recommending. It's kind of a small tidbit of what we do. Obviously we're involved in a lot. We also work a lot with the driver at the racetrack is the Nascar. You don't have any data acquisition on the car for the weekend. So we're basing all our decisions off of verbal from the dryer. Okay. He said the car is tired. If it's loose if it's pushing if it's you kind of trite you learn their cues, you know, I've been with you mean offer Bible seasons and I'm finally starting to figure out all he's got cold words for different things. He's feeling in the car and you can go back to a database that we have four years ago. He said that here and we tried this on the car and it really helped I really woke up that area like you have to convert that subjective like this idea of you have to take words. I mean, I'm sure the drivers are really technical probably maybe not buy a training but they end up getting there because they realize they have to get better but this idea of like converting what they have into actual like engineering decision like okay the cars feeling loose, okay. You know, I made some spring stiffness changes. Is it that like is it is it the stiffness rate on the rear shocks is that when I specifically need to change as the engineer to accommodate this it's it's an interesting translation job it is cuz you know, you're going to the sports like the F1 cars in the Indy cars and they've all got live Telemetry throughout a raise. So they're looking at it and are able to make adjustments on the Fly based off just completely data-driven and then for those who don't know tell him if your meaning there's data acquisition on board that's being beamed to to you guys who are stationary on the sidelines. So you actually looking at the raw the raw data during the race that is that what you mean travel? Yeah, so we got just recently I guess this year it came up with a new program called smt and it's basically a computer app where we can watch live. It looks like a video game where a car is on there in a car's got GPS and it'll show us where our car is relative everybody else and then we can see simple input so we can see throttle we can see break we can see steering speed trace and RPM basically and they allow that for all four teams and we can see anybody else's too. So that's another tool that just recently became available to us as Engineers. So we watch that a lot and you know, we can see in steering traces if he's tight if he's loose where in the corner he's struggling. We do a lot of driver development with Jimmy and I can say that I'm watching a specific Carlos leading the race we can provide him feedback and saying hey, he's lifting earlier. He's using more break into the corner or we can see he's loose but this seems to be helping them running higher or lower. That's another tool that brought a little bit more data-driven decisions. I guess maybe we should just check this out a little bit and let's talk about what they can you walk us through a race day. I mean cuz it sounds like what you do on race day is similar, but what you're actually doing is significantly different than when you're in the office obviously correcto through a day like in if you can give us like examples of what you're talking about. Like I'm looking at this and doing this like, I'd love to hear that. Yeah, so basically race they honestly from Race Engineering perspective is probably our easiest day of the week basically when we come to the track Andres take our car is impounded we've already gone through technical inspection so there's not really anything we can do on the car side once the race starts there's three of us Engineers that sit up on the pit box that's where the car comes in gets tires and Fuel and whatnot. We sit up there with our computers we got a bunch monitors that we watch Once the race starts which is shortly couple hours after we get in the garage area. I've got that smt app where I'm watching the data. Where he's driving his inputs and then we're trying to take the crew chief to talk to him the whole time over the radio and trying to get feedback from him what the car is doing. What is struggling with what he needs help with engineering side. There's very little spiritual that we can adjust on the race car. Once the races started know we can adjust the rear jack screws in the car. We can adjust air pressures on all four corners and we can adjust the right side track bar on a car. So once the race starts were trying to balance were talking back and forth with the coochie throughout the race over an intercom and trying to determine what adjustments we need to make on a pit stop in order to try to improve the balance of the car. But if you're way off it's difficult to try to get back on. On Pace with really fast guys. Can you kind of made your bed once the race starts? And then also on top of that, you know, that's your set up specific then there's a lot of strategy so we actually have a couple different strategy simulations. We were on birthdays. Hey, if you take right side tires here with this much lap time fall off your going to lose this many seconds over a run and you going to lose this may positions as a result. If you take just you'll only if you take for tires, depending on when you pick it, you know, you can fit a different times obviously wants your fuel windows open up. So there's a lot of that and then the second part of the back to the kitchen to make you said we're looking for that data between us three Engineers its majority of what I do in the primary engineer does the third engineer just ten Sports little bit on the side that information and then we're also Standing on the radio. We can stand the other 40 drivers over the radio. Hey, we're going to collapse like will tell the crew chief paid 18 cars 1010 lineups or think about it. And then hey they're going to do tires, but teams have gotten, you know, tricky with that to where they got cold words. Hey, what are you paid me fifteen? We don't know what I mean is that might be four tires might be two tires and might be no tires. Soap in a change in matter we can we do the same thing. So we kind of try to trick each other a little bit on one strategy. Just been face when you're talking about the play like it's ya very interesting mold of technical technical engineering that I guess we do I run a fuel mileage program. So can we can't see live fuel mileage on our cars? So we basically have a fancy Excel spreadsheet that we run and we can import slap times in basically predicts how much fuel you have left and you just weigh their fuel cans after reached out to you know, how much you got in the car so we can use you predict with in Uno. A quarter of a lap or half a lap when we're going to run out of fuel so that again we're always talking to the crew chief about hey, we got 10 laps left a we're not going to make our window. Consider putting early consider staying out later when everybody else is fitting for strategy your kind of trying to balance, you know, the race strategy with those programs with what you have available for fuel. Sometimes you want to stretch your window when you're trying to run as long as you can sometimes you're short kitten just kind of depends on the track in the distance and what you're trying to do for points, you know, there's points in each. They basically the races are broke up in the stages three stages. So like the first quarter of the race than they throw the checkered flag and that's you get points top 10 get points and then the second Half I guess another hundred laps or whatever that second stage top 10 gets points and then the last age so that also has to the strategy on when you want to put it and if you want points or not I've ever fits work for going points to try to finish the race better at the end. So

Speaker 2: it sounds like you unlike maybe what other professions are doing, you're making a lot of like decisions, you know, you have to be looking at data making decisions right away. Like what you're looking at in analyzing now is going to have a an immediate impact on you know, whether the the carpets now or later or what you're trying to do for strategy. So it's almost like much more real time that we might see another another disciplines where things are a much longer time Horizons.

Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just specific traits. They obviously, you know during the week we we predict or build cars right now for Daytona, which is 3 months away. So that's a little bit farther, you know, there's times that we're coming down Pit Road and were communicating to the crew chief where you know 5 seconds away from Boxer changing our mind what we want to do for Tiger strategy. So it's very on the fly at times depending on what other people doing. And what were the data were getting. Yes, or no, maybe expand that then until less chaos, maybe even not raced a but the difference in your day today between those two seasons is drastically different cetera and history. So maybe maybe we should maybe we should start by talking about like a typical day while you're in season, but it's not a race that you know what I mean kind of walking through like a few days before the race what you're doing what's going on and if you have maybe like examples of like what would specifically you'd be working on? So typically we fly out just to give you coming over you during the season. We fly out on a Thursday night Norbeck typically on a Sunday night. So we're in the shop Monday Tuesday Wednesday supposed to have Mondays and Thursdays off. But typically I work in those days. I'm typically Monday, we're wrapping up our post-race notes. So that's basically going through all our entire weekend trying to get goodnotes. Good document a I'm for the next time that we go back to that track Tuesday mornings or driver. Jimmie actually comes into the shop. We do a full sit down and be ready for them. Where will go through every step of the race ever adjustment. We made when he fell on right side tires vs. For tires to try to break down the race. Just try to get in our notes for the next time I go back to that track cuz otherwise you forget so much. You'll six months later. When you go back to last track and then from there that kind of wraps up the previous week and then usually Tuesday afternoons you moving on to the next week's race. So that includes work starting to go through starting sifter data set up data trying to optimize our bodies, you know, our car is actually getting put together at that point assembled during the week on Wednesday, Tuesday Wednesday. origami with the crew chief reaction before our meeting with him on Wednesdays and that goes through every step of the race card, you know from the front of the car to the back of the car Arrow basically any all-encompassing and trying to that's usually where we make small decision changes, you know, we might change a sprain we might change a some camera and front we might change a component here and there but basically the cars built at that point. So once we get to that long discussion, it's us 3 race engineers in the crew chief. We can I get notes for the weekend what we want to try kind of directions. We want to go. From then we start moving onto we start sending out build sheets 2 weeks prior to the event and specifically on the 48. I sent all the build cheats for the cars. So really we're trying to forecast 2 weeks ahead of time. We're sending out what your ass if you want to run what body spect we want to run every suspension component. Every interior item seats, basically anything and bolts the car. I send a sheet everybody in the shop 2 weeks prior with help from the other race engineers and then a car starts getting built 2 to 3 weeks ahead of time typically and then from there, you know, that's typically Wednesday afternoons that we send out the build sheet for 2 weeks out and then Thursday is usually you're diving into simulation or you take whatever packages you want to try or if there's new ideas. You have you run it through a computer simulation see what it does if it's a direction you want to go if it's not what you want to go. We also lay out what those practice changes and tail, you know, if it's the right way spring if that's changing your height change in near wenge. What kind of right that all down and get it recorded So when we're in practice cuz I getting that fast pace at the racetrack. We're trying to do these changes in minutes. That's probably a pretty typical week at the shop for me wrong. So just summarize like it's I think me and it's there so much diversity there in just a typical reading of it sounds like Mondays documentation Tuesday workout, like technical discussion. Wednesday is paperwork and then Thursday's R&D and then the weekend is the cast of racing heartbeat and you know what they're at the shop. We always say that you're 95% of the time you're fastest race cars when you unload off the truck, you know, cuz you spent weeding preparing this card and we try a practice changes. We try different packages, but it's very often you go back to what you started with.

Speaker 2: So what does minutes a lot going on during the Race season then what does it look like in the offseason for for however long or short that time? Maybe are you guys doing more? I mean kind of warranty work almost to look at like longer.

Speaker 3: Longer and larger Improvement

Speaker 2: projects or trying to test the car more like I don't know you guys go back two different race tracks erased and I already have your own track or or what kind of goes on during that time. I guess.

Speaker 3: I really NASCAR is kind of mandated where we can't go test and racetrack anywhere unless it's a NASCAR test. So typically there's only two or three tests a year. They almost never fallen officers at the most during the season always attract. We can't do a lot offseason in general. We do a lot of R&D work like you said, so we're trying to improve our product for the following year. Like for example this year. We're getting a brand new body from Chevrolet. So we're spending a lot of time in the Wind Tunnel. I think we have like in the month of December. I think we're there like 20 days or something and they work 14-hour shifts. They're just trying to optimize the body as much as we can. So that's just a small example. We're involved a little bit in the body builds, you know, we try to dissect that information and try to create a bill that we want in our bodies. We also have a 7 post at the shop is called and basically what it is. It's got four actuators under the tires of a full-blown race car and then it's got three hydraulic Rams at our captain Bob the car that simulate downforce from Arrow. And basically we have a track file that'll run for each track for the car bounces around like it said for example, Daytona Carl make a lab on surround like it's on Daytona. It's got sensors. It's fully sensor. That's got lasers and potentiometers steering sensors and whatnot. So then we can sit through that data

Speaker 2: and then we can go out there. We can change the

Speaker 3: shock and then run another lap. Look at that data and say hey, what did that do? We do a lot of that seven posting. We also have several other rate that we can do, you know suspension testing with we got chassis dynos that we do powertrain efficiencies with you do a lot of R&D trying to improve the product that we just ended. And then we're also trying to forecast out, you know, we just finished today forecast for chassis for next year. So we go we go ahead and we look at the 38th races that we have next year and we stay we got 12 different chassis. We can run. How can we run? How can we make it work when we run one this week? And then it's a six-week turn around to get the car back on track where we going to run at 6 and you have different chassis for different types of tracks know you have a Speedway chassis a rope course chassis short track chassis. I think that's what is an intermediate which is a majority of our season of the listeners understand. Can you just pick like maybe one thing but me and if you can't talk about it, like what you doing right now that that's why I may be my pick pick a thing from last season or something that you worked on and I kind of walk us through like what you were actually doing like the goal was to improve this and so these are the things I did. You don't mean just can't help it when I say like what you what you might actually be working on technically or not technically in the offseason last offseason. The crew chiefs had determined and drivers that they thought we had too much movement with a front of our car basically too much oscillation. So they wanted to try to calm that down. So we actually went to you I was one of the engineers assigned to that project. So we went to that 7 postre get us tell me about where the car just bounces around like Stone the racetrack and we played with different damping and then different Springs and wheel rates to try and calm that down as must we could so, you know that included going making a change on the raid going back looking at the data trying to find a clear Direction. And you can spend you know, we spent probably 3 days on the rig straight and free nine-hour days. I'm just making changes changes changes and trying to get to take an engineering approach to find what's Best in each area and try to combine those together to improve our splitter control. You know, it's so big we run our car so low to the ground at the racetrack right now that you try to keep it on the ground, but you don't want it hitting the ground is it starts take a load off the front tires and from an arrow standpoint to aerodynamics. You want the car to be a steady-state as you can all the way around the racetrack in a perfect world. You have the car not move you have really really stiff chassis Springs basically and not move at all. But then you become grip limited where they can try the car. So that obviously is impossible but that was kind of a fun project and we incorporated a lot of those ideas into our setups this year. There's still room for improvement. We actually have a better test schedule a couple weeks from now. Tecate so that's so funny. Let me try to digest that. I think for the listener so light on like a 7 poster day that's you starting out the day, you know 9 hours. You're you're getting in. What time are you getting in? 6:30? Okay, you're in at 6:30. There's probably attack run in the rig, right and you staying here we're going to run this track profile with this vehicle and then you run it and then okay, we got to make these adjustments so you or a different tack is going out to the vehicle and actually physically turn into things Titan and stuff up doing stuff. And then okay the adjustments made run get back in the control arm of the rig it go again on the play button record the data sit there for a second while you assume look at the data and say okay it made this change Yelp process that with your engineering mind. It's okay. I want to know I'll try this is that you pretty much you decide if you want to go further that direction or that direction didn't work if you need to make A change in different change it from like an experimental way that way but then also using your simulation tools where you can essentially try to limit the amount of testing that you have to do meaning like yeah, maybe at a simulation that said if I tighten it it should go this way or else it pushes you that way is real world as we can get, you know without being on the racetrack this difficult art computer simulation tools are a little bit limited. You know, I'm stuffed like Tire squish obviously a spring rate of a tire get squish obviously their load and some of our tools don't do a super good job at that modeling that we actually happening so we can get without being on the racetrack. And so you're dealing, you know, you dealing with these types of project for it's like a we have an objective we have this issue or this thing. We want to improve until then you're going out and you're helping, you know with support of everyone else on the team running running it trying to Figure out how you can move the needle and then bringing that back in a meeting. Yeah. I assume it's then from that 7 poster are compiling a presentation and bring that presentation to a conference room and saying here's what I found. Is that the next time you up. So basically as you go through that 7 post you're taking notes the whole time and you kind of compile a report at the end and then you send that out to all four teams, but we really only presented to our team. So my crew chief is who I would present it to go to him to Hades our findings as to what we found was a good direction. He always wants to see the data if he's an engineer also see pull up the day. Go through the day. You know step through a couple different things. You did couple different directions and he may provide feedback and said, hey, I want to try more of this. So I want to try something different. They did you think of this and then we can go back to the seven post and finish up his request. But yeah, once once he looks it over then he kind of decides if it's not we want to incorporate in the car or not. He has the final say I was so

Speaker 2: so you're doing a lot of chassis and body work. Are you doing engine work? Also is that another team or does NASCAR have that locked down for race teams?

Speaker 3: They don't have a lockdown. We have an entire engine Department. We're not very involved from a race engineer standpoint. We're not very involved in the engine side. There's actually a whole separate group. I think there's 15 engineers at work just in engine engineering. So that's kind of a separate entity since DG. Right? Right, and we understand that the horsepower implications and sometimes we pick him up with new packages and they'll let us know, you know from a high-level view. We are aware of what's going on in the engine side, but not directly involved in the design and testing of

Speaker 2: okay. So it's that that's a different subsystem. You guys are not worried about it is is the engine team they're also than on race day. Or are you guys the main support team for the driver? We

Speaker 3: are basically the main support team for the driver. So from it engine perspective. We do have an engine tuner that is assigned to each race car so that they know the engine very very well and there with the there with each specific team the other ones and I'll go change valve springs or check last for You know, it's become so electrical now, they got to connect to the car after every wrong and pull the data from it the limited data we can get so we do have some representation from engine throughout the weekend. But as far as like engineering side on the engine side, they only work in the race the race shop then I

Speaker 2: will get you guys are you guys are daddy people there on race day sporting everything making sure it all goes. Well,

Speaker 3: correct. And if we have a major issue then we have to reach back some of the shop if it's something we canceled. Yeah, it sounds so I can know just kind of acting like my world you either as a PhD student site I go and I'll set up a plan and I'll run out and I'll do testing and then I'll come back and my PhD advisor will say okay? Okay. Yeah, you know me better than this wrong or maybe we should do this differently, you know, it's it's so interesting how it's similar you imagine many of the engineers listening like it's it's probably too much for them to know if there's a special Affair in the day that was just for him or even if they're in the modeling wrong with Society of hey go model this thing try to see me like this bring the report back. It's just been kind of a different world.

Speaker 2: So you've been doing Racing for 6 years now, right,

Speaker 3: correct?

Speaker 2: Okay. So I guess going back before you were doing this. Take us back kind of to the how you even got to where you're at is this I mean even go back to you if your kids this something you knew you wanted to do before you even started going to college or anything or is it something you kind of figured out as you went through a joke? Haitian and found out about the opportunities and what was their

Speaker 3: it honestly been a dream of mine since Is young as I can remember I was always a Nascar fan growing up in my family was very involved in dirt track racing actually up in Minnesota still from a young age. I was brought up around the racetrack. I spent a lot of time at the dirt track knee brace myself for 2 years. I worked for a dirt late model team that travel Nationwide when I was in high school. I did that for a year. I work for a Dodge Viper race team that was in my hometown. I did that for a year and traveled not travel was like six or seven races a year. So it wasn't super intense in but from a young age. I was always trying to build my resume to get the get to this point.

Speaker 2: So once I went to college if I had a very

Speaker 3: clear direction that I want a mechanical engineering degree to get into NASCAR. The end goal was to always work for Hendrick Motorsports. I didn't think I would ever start there. You know in 2012, I guess I'd started putting my resume out there. I must been a sophomore at the time to any team, you know, the lower-level teams the Lord budget teams just to try to get my foot in the door willing to work for whatever free resale. Probably send my resume to 30 different shops. And of course the only company that got back to me with Hendrick Motorsports, which is weird hot workout. So they called me I had an interview with them and I guess before that I had an internship with General Motors and Toyota FJ out of coop with they called me randomly when I was at Co-op. Already been out of school for 6 months or something. They said hey, we want to offer you a job did it interview or whatever you say you will only do a year internship with us was like, oh my gosh at that point. I was going to be out of school for whatever that is, 15 months are almost two years, basically. Juggalo nervous about the time but it was an opportunity that I really couldn't pass up. So I went and did that 2012 through 2013. Then I went back to Tech I finished my engineering degree in December of 2014. They had sent me an offer. I guess it was maybe August of 2014 a full time offer and I started the first 2nd of January. I think 15 right over College the bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering fit into this. I'm just curious I got now and now that you have your kind of experience is it just kind of a checkmark that has to happen along the way cuz it sounds like there was so much more that you were doing when you were a kid and all this other thing. There's a lot that I took away from college, you know. I just had one of my college professors to text send me notes from my vibrations class. Just last week some slideshow Sullivan vibrations classes the fluid dynamics classes for any of our air dynamics stuff. I think that all applicable and just to have the mindset to understand the physics of the race car in what's happening at the college degree was super important from a you-know-what work perspective. I think having the racing experience is really big, you know, when I look at a lot of resumes now and we hired quite a few interns and that is probably one of the biggest things we look for you know GPA isn't so important to us the hands-on experience and that doesn't even have to be racing. You know, if it's somebody working in their dad's garage all growing up, you know, putting brakes on cars or pulling engine starter cars or it got their own car. That's kind of their Hobby. That the Hands-On is really really difficult to mash. The engineering side of the hands on side is really important in this role of summarize what I'm hearing. It's it's it's like there's a lot there's a lot of different kind of boxes and things at that are looked at. The bachelor's degree is one of them but there's also a lot more that needs to fill out that person or that needs to but that can fill out the person that you guys are to the point where that's that's where your that's where you're looking cuz there's enough people doing that all that other stuff. And that what I want to do, what you going to do a spot for people that are types of different when you can go into design engineering and you can sit at a desk and design Parts all day and work on you know, I'd design software run FDA, which is great. There's a need for those people. We have a really good group of those people are shop that do that everyday and then and you're on the Race Engineering side, which is way more Hands-On, you know, we're out getting I'm laying under the car throughout the weekend and change it Springs if I need to or Open change a rear end housing. Hope to change an engine. We're definitely probably 30% of my job is Hands-On. I'm out at the car helping the guys out as much as I can and I think that gives you a better understanding, you know, any making setup changes and you're trying to help our design Department build something me being able to touch physically touch the car and understand the car, I think. Is big but it's one thing to be able to design something behind a computer, but in order to integrated into the vehicles different stores. So it sounds like this when you were younger you had this moment where you're like, I could be a race engineer. I'm at I mean, maybe it was a. Of time but at some point obviously you had this moment where you're like, this is a path I could go down. Do you remember when that was how old you were in like how you figure it out? What you needed to do to get there probably very young age, but I probably was when I was I don't I don't think it was an exact moment, but I'm junior year of high school when I went to work for that Dodge Viper race team that was able to go travel a lot in and be able to do it for a living and I think part of it also was me racing in our race myself for 2 years. And after that, I was 17 years old at the time I said man, this is the path. I want like I enjoy racing but I want to be able to make a career out of it and just such a small percentage like in any professional sports make it to the top, you know as an athlete is very difficult. So that's probably 16 or 17 is when I decided Race Engineering is what I really want to do. So how did you guys figure out what you needed to do to get there? You know what I guess maybe four people out there that might be a junior in high school that are like this is something that I want to do. But what what advice would you give them on figuring out what to do to get there? Because I mean I get your point about you know, it's to get there as soon as a percentage chance. It's small but here are the things you should do to try to give it your best shot. Yeah, for sure. You know, like I said before I think the biggest thing to any anybody that wants to get in this for this young is to try and get as much hands-on experience as you can get the weather that's working in with your dad at the garage at that's going to a local Racetrack and offering your help for free and I did that for 10 years and my local race track coming out to North Carolina, you know, it's big for me when I was younger, you know, I was in college I flew out here and I just want to visit in the shops. I literally called to originally set up with hendrik. I called the 800 number online in the gift shop answered and that was my first contacted Hendrick Motorsports. I just started at work and I just said hey, can you connect me with human resources and went to human resources and start send my resume and just persistence. You know, I think I probably sent my resume for a year-and-a-half before I ever got a call that there's potential opening for an internship. I think it's much hands-on experience as you can get you know, it always helps to know somebody within the sport I didn't at the time but that's how a lot of people get into it is they know an engineer that works for a few more than All crew chief helps to have a foot in the door for sure.

Speaker 2: See your base in North Carolina now is are all the race teams there. I use it. It means Hendrix there is really the team's base there or is there a kind of a larger Geographic diversity where the race teams are based out of it if someone was like, you know, North Carolina. You don't have a chance. It's kind of

Speaker 3: you. Don't go yet. You don't have a chance right now, you know as of two years ago, there was a team out in Colorado very successful and they just shut down at the end of last year. So all teams are in North Carolina right now, probably within a 2-hour radius of each other.

Speaker 2: How are you? Are you bumping into like other teams outside of work? Sometimes you get patronizing the same restaurants in it and hang out spots and everything else.

Speaker 3: Yep. Absolutely that we see him all the time. Like we'll go to lunch at work and we see people even within head around Hendrick probably within 5 miles. There's three or four other race shops. Even just going for lunch at work. You see other people but actually worked at route for the last three years before I came back to do work on my PhD. I just worked around Midway. I didn't work with a race team. I worked in the Consulting engineering Wing until I was doing it noise and vibration Consulting and we're in Detroit in the article or four companies, but I had a company that had to work for it down in North Carolina. And I remember I was in North Carolina walking downtown and I had my route shirt on and it's it's like a different thing like you work around like in Detroit. No one has any idea. I mean really for the most part but you go you go down to North Carolina and you have like, you know, what unofficial like what looks like an employee Jersey. I'll call it a jersey and they'll stop you on the street and talk about it, right? Yeah, that's always been my thing. I I'm the total opposite when I go for that reason if I go out at night or if I go You know go get dinner and a drink or something with a friend. Like I will never wear anything that says Hendrick on it ever whether it's a hat or a shirt or for that reason. I don't want to be bothered. Sure. Yeah, I'd love to tie this into family a little bit if you don't mind man, and I just cuz it seems like it's going golfing. I mean even just talking about what you're talkin about would just the travel commitment. I'm curious as to your perspective on how it works as a family to be a part of this team. Yeah for sure. It definitely is taxing on family and flea maybe thankfully, I guess I'm single now and don't have any kids. So that makes it easy for me and my age to be able to travel and go everywhere. So it's not so big of a deal for me. But I've worked or I currently do work with lot of families. A lot of people that have families that is extremely taxing, especially if you're in like that crew chief role, you know, they work 7 days a week 10 hours a day completely consumed in meetings and fly in here and fly in the air. It's difficult but a lot of race Engineers, you know after typically they'll travel for tennis years and then I'll come off the road and get a shop job. There's a lot of opportunities within like Hendrick if I wanted to come out there all this year to be able to be erasing or not a race engineer but an engineer with in the shop doing something different weather that's testing whether that's going to the wind tunnel with her that's helping with cfd work. That's typically the people that start having kids and they travel for a couple years. Typically what they do is start transitioning to working in the shop

Speaker 2: there a lot of people then who made a lifetime career out of working for Hendrick or is it a I've I've been out traveling I transition to the shop and now deserve a lot of kind of attrition after that what people want to go try something else or is it like I'm in this I'm glad to be a part of it I'm staying here until until I retire

Speaker 3: I would say there's more people that are very committed to the company know Rick Hendrick who owns a company is a huge Family Guy, you know, you got a Strong Christian Foundation. He's got a family of his own. He actually in 2004 one of his private jets went down with his son in it and his two nieces and they all passed away and Rick is always preached family and being together and working together. He comes in all the time and he'll shake your hand and he's a billionaire 50 dealerships or something in the nation, but he is so big on family that I think once people come out the road people want to work there forever because of Rick Rick I think it's kind of the glue to this company, you know, he's been the spearhead since 1984. I think the company started at 25 years, you know every year they have a 25 year. Celebration I guess and it's recognizing people that have been at the company for 25 years and he gives them all Rolex watches and it's crazy to me every year that it's like there's it seems like there's 10 people walking across the stage every year getting a Rolex watch being there for 25 years. So I would say a lot more people stay then then leave, you know, there is some turn over obviously just the nature of the business and competition but

Speaker 2: is that pretty or do you think to Hendrick Motorsports or do you think some of the other race teams can have a similar similar culturally similar retention

Speaker 3: rate have that a similar retention rate, you know that the teams that have Smaller budgets, I guess definitely have a lot more turnover, you know people are and I think part of it is they can't attract the talent that the bigger companies can just cuz they can't afford it. And then those people just start bouncing all over the place. They go from Team to team, you know, it's kind of fun to watch when you show up in Daytona every year in February be like, hey, I know that guy you worked on that whatever 20 car last year. I know that guy. He's on a different team this year. Every year when you walk in the daytonas like man, he's wearing different Jersey in different shirt. Whatever you're standing on the West Coast or the West Coast companies Facebook and Google and said they like all like almost have agreements to not poach employees. I don't know. I don't know if there's a certain amount of people that are under contract contract employee. I just reset timer on for another two years in my contract States. Yes that I can't go work under that contract. I can't go work for another company. And then after that contract is done. I still have to wait eight months to go work for any kind of competitor. So they kind of got me locked down where I can if I want to get out of Hendrick, I would have to go work somewhere else for a year and then try to go to a different race team. As an engineer, you know a general mechanic and you don't body guy and Fabrication guy, they are not contract employees. But the people that basically get to see all the data and no the insides are typically contract employees and kind of lockdown. Yeah, I think they're scared of something like that. And I mean running you work at General Motors. Do you know if there's a similar thing for you? You probably can't can you go to an oem? Do you have trouble of some kind of rule like that or is that not true for you

Speaker 2: is necessarily anything straight up. I guess I haven't tried to to go that route yet. But I know there are people who it's who have come directly to GM from other companies or have gone from GM to other room. So sure if I should I should probably figure that out for my own sake of understanding what I signed up to whatever for a company but I don't I don't know anything like that.

Speaker 3: You didn't read that packet of information when you started it was like

Speaker 2: man. I read some of it. I know there's like this definitely things I can and can't say I'm the same way. I

Speaker 3: barely know. You know, I just got my third or fourth contract. I don't think I've ever read through the whole contract. I'd just kind of take for granted that What I'm signing is, okay. Well, I mean we all like to think that everyone don't know people are people are good people and you know, if you're working for a good company, that's not trying to win the championship in your case, but make the widget and others were there whatever right out there listening that you know, I was thinking like man do I think I'd want to doing okay in that was in maybe your shoes before like what are the biggest differences than what you thought life would be like, you know, if you could talk to yourself when you were he not even saying even though you're at Toyota and you know, you just about to start internship at that point. How is it different than what you would have expected it to be like that's a loaded question. It's just more like you may not be that different. But you know what? Maybe it's me. I was just curious if there are actually some things that are like quite a bit different than you actually thought it would be. Yeah, I think really probably the biggest difference for me is one side. Here not ever understanding. How much went into it before I started working here. You know how many people involved how much teamwork is involved how much engineering goes behind these scars to make you know you here so often that these cars are just Big Blocks and turn left around the racetrack and there's so much more behind it than I ever imagined. So many more people take so many people to make it happen. It's such an infrastructure to do it and it's extremely rewarding to you know, It's easy to imagine, you know, as a ten-year-old. What standing in Victory Lane is a champion down in Homestead to be like in until you get to that point. It's Now you got to pinch yourself sometimes even 5 years into it when I go into work. It's like man. I'm working on one of the greatest NASCAR drivers ever to step into a race car. I'm working on his car every day. Like it's also very rewarding and challenging but from an engineering side. That's that's fun for me.

Speaker 2: Yeah. She said it sounds like you got a pretty good a pretty good set up there and everything. You've you explain to us. Sounds like to lick you almost got the luck of the draw you been working here right out of college get to do something you love doing awesome stuff everyday give anything else before we before we close it out that you want to share with you with anyone listening and you can maybe last-minute advice

Speaker 3: more than anything hard work will get you anything you want. I've always said that, you know, I wasn't the smartest person through college my first semester Aztec. I was a to find GPA and night I question myself at this was a path that I needed Beyond in Sync with persistence and hard work and it's the same way now, like I feel like I have to work three times harder than somebody else to learn something but I think you can get anywhere if you work hard enough and you you set your mind regardless of how book smart. You are regardless of how much racing experience you have and you just got to go after it. There was times that I never thought I would get into the sport never be at the top tier that I'm at now and you just and you just got to keep pushing. hard work work

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pretty good advice Chase will thanks. Thanks for coming on the show and talk to us. It's been great is the great talking to you and learn about what you're doing and ask on everything and yeah, we hope that you get to stand up there and get your Rolex to and that the drain to get there goes away whilst Texican on the show. I appreciate it guys. Take care

Speaker 3: if I realize that I think Jimmy Smith last season is coming up business 2020. Is it in the best of luck and best of luck in the last season man? Hope you guys are great. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2: Some pretty cool stuff going on for you know getting the job right out of college and work on it for six years and like Zach achieve his dream like that. That's pretty impressive thing. I'm still not there.

Speaker 3: That's really awesome. And I'm really happy for him. You know, it sounds it sounds like he's worked his butt off and he's done a lot of stuff to realign them on the path and I really couldn't be more happy for him.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I took away was with how he prepared for this how we kind of knew what you wanted to do. We had the vision of it and he worked at its high school up through college, even when he wasn't the best in school like you said, but he put himself out there. He called called the gift shop

Speaker 3: volunteer for 10 years at the track

Speaker 2: of anyone I think get to where they want to go. If they have a clear picture of that that isn't to say that the people who don't have a super clear picture of what they want to do can't get there. I don't think that's the case at all things people can Fall into their dream jobs in all kinds of different ways, but when someone knows exactly what they want to do in types of laser focus on it. It makes it easier to figure out what the exact steps are what the different experiences might be to get their.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I agree it. You know, I think even just having an idea of like what I want to spend my evening volunteer time on can you put it in a different way this idea? Like if you didn't have a focus I called you to know where to volunteer write how would you know who to call if you're going to just like I got to do something. I don't know. I agree. I think that it gets really interesting. I think for me the most interesting part of the talk for me is just the constant comparison to his job in to my job and my thinking like, okay, he's going to go take some data and he's going to make a report and he's going to bring that to the manager of cortical manager and then he's going to ignore kind of jobs do some testing let you know quite a bit of travel the Travel Inn. It's but then you think this is for like an intense sports team. It's like engineering Athletics. I get a 1000. I just constantly dakini. It's interesting to hear that his day-to-day is so engineering but then like this kind of taken aback by this idea of its it's this huge sports team

Speaker 2: like that term like the athlete of the engineering world is this Regiment of how is weeks going to go? Yes could prepare get everything ready. And then head off on race day ago is Anna and I guess I mean race day we think of the drivers may be as being the athletes but we don't always think about the people behind the driver who have supported him to get there and have their own rolls. The driver may be the quarterback 20th football terms but not the rest of the team is is everyone supporting and they're just as important

Speaker 3: as the constant. You know, now she's even just like looking at taping on just got out of all these things. This is the engineering really cool. Really enjoyed last conversation.

Speaker 2: I don't have a worker who works in in racing now, but hasn't been in it that long. So it's really interesting to hear about someone who's been doing it for a while and and got to write a collagen and living

Speaker 3: the dream. Hi, buddy. Well, you know hope you hope you enjoy your night and we'll be in touch soon.

Speaker 2: All right, good luck. Good luck at school. Try

Speaker 3: I guess I guess couple

Speaker 2: weeks

Speaker 3: when you're just doing research. It's typical like stresses of the normal academic schedule, like of No Stress before finals week and stuff. Just kind of like I'm sitting there at the meetings like, okay, whatever just doing the thing

Speaker 2: go back to

Speaker 3: buy.

Speaker 2: Thanks for listening this episode of engineer your career with Troy Bauman and Brennan Tamarack her more information about the show visit our website at byc podcast.com there you can find show notes for each episode and get in touch with drawing. I if you or someone, you know are an engineer with an interesting or even not so interesting career journey, I would like to be on the show go on the website send us a short bio and we made it to invite you to come on and share your story. And finally if you want to show your support, please rate review like or subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice.