Brienne
NASCAR institute puts students on fast track
By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Brienne Davis didn't have so much as a foot in the door when she moved to NASCAR country from Houston last year in hopes of landing a job with a Winston Cup auto racing team.
She had something better: a leg up on the competition, in the form of a year-long automotive technology training program that included six weeks of a NASCAR-approved curriculum on racing.
That, and drive. Within two days of her arrival here last year, Davis, 22, had a job. Today, she tears down engines for Dale Earnhardt Inc., owner of three Winston Cup teams.
Now, an expanded version of the program Davis completed is moving to Mooresville, home base for many NASCAR teams.
On July 1, the NASCAR Technical Institute (NTI) will open its $12 million training facility to its first class of 120 students. Three weeks into that group's 57-week curriculum, another cohort of 120 students will rotate in, and then another and another. Demand is so strong that an applicant accepted today must wait until at least February to begin classes.
As the first such program with the NASCAR seal of approval, NTI carries a certain cachet. Top officials characterize the deal as a marriage of educational expertise and racing experience. It's a partnership between Phoenix-based Universal Technical Institute (UTI), which runs automotive technology programs in Texas, Illinois, Florida, California and Arizona, and NASCAR, which offers an insider's knowledge of stock-car racing.
The goal is to prepare graduates for an entry-level job as a technician on a race team in the Winston Cup Series, NASCAR's elite. But, while NASCAR is the draw, only the final 18 weeks address the art and science of making cars go fast. In the first 39 weeks, students are taught skills covered in UTI's traditional programs for auto mechanics, including engine construction, body work, chassis applications and durability. Only after that do students set their sights on a race car.
The NASCAR portion was developed by an advisory board of Winston Cup crew chiefs past and present, and NTI officials say the instructors and guest speakers will be drawn from NASCAR as well.
Topics will be similar to those in the first 39 weeks, but with an emphasis on "fine-tuning and being much more precise," says Larry McReynolds, a NASCAR analyst for Fox TV network and a member of NTI's advisory board. Whereas a passenger car rolls off an assembly line prepared to hold up reasonably well with minimal care, the way a race car is built and adjusted "changes with every track, and it changes a dozen times over the course of (a) weekend," he says.
McReynolds says that NTI can save time and money both for aspiring NASCAR pit crew and shop workers, and for teams. "A lot of people out there (aspire) to be a Winston Cup mechanic, but this will let them get their feet wet around a race car to see if it's really what they want to do," he says.
As for today's ultra-competitive race teams, managers don't want to wade through hundreds of résumés from half-hearted wannabes, and crews don't have time to waste helping eager novices get up to speed.
The rapid-fire growth of NASCAR, too, has upped the need for workers, with some skills — such as fabrication, which involves building the skin of the car out of sheet metal — in particularly high demand.
"If you're a really good fabricator, those guys can be used right away because that's hard to learn," says J.D. Gibbs, president of Joe Gibbs Racing, the company his father started 10 years ago with one car and about 15 shop workers. Today, the company owns four cars and has close to 200 employees on the payroll.
Still, while NTI's career placement office is expected to work with race teams, developing a NASCAR-ready labor pool is not the only — or even the main — motive for NASCAR or UTI.
A primary objective is to leverage the NASCAR name in support of the flagging automotive aftermarket industry — that's trade jargon referring to technicians and other professionals who make and distribute parts for, or repair and maintain the cars driven by average folks on average roadways. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 60,000 such jobs go unfilled every year.
The NASCAR brand is "very highly visible, very exciting," says Rich White, spokesman for the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association, based in Bethesda, Md. "It's that kind of visibility that's going to draw the attention that's needed to the profession and make it a little more glamorous."
That's also good for NASCAR, which relies on aftermarket companies — such as Snap-on Tools or GM Goodwrench — to sponsor cars and races. As NASCAR's Odis Lloyd puts it: "If that industry is healthy, then NASCAR is healthy."
So what are the chances of nabbing a job with a Winston Cup team? NASCAR is still a tight community, many team members say, and who you know probably still holds sway.
But just as younger drivers are snatching up more of the 43 coveted spots in Winston Cup lineups each week, "it's probably time for a lot of fresh blood in the sport," says Tommy Baldwin, crew chief for Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton and an NTI advisory board member.
For Davis, the job search involved timing and ambition — not to mention her 4.0 grade point average. She sent out some 200 résumés while still in school, all without a nibble. Then, while taking an automotive certification exam, she struck up a conversation with a test taker wearing a jacket bearing the logo for Pennzoil — driver Steve Park's primary sponsor. He put her in touch with Park's crew chief at Dale Earnhardt, Inc. From there, it was a matter of following through. "I never dreamed I'd be here my first job," Davis says.
Even though it boasts that kind of success by a graduate, NTI makes no promises. Completing the program "is not a guarantee of employment in the automotive industry in general or NASCAR either by UTI or NASCAR," reads a disclaimer students must sign before they can enroll.
That hasn't kept hopefuls from wishful thinking, but it has helped them maintain perspective.
"Eventually, I'd like to work with a race team — it wouldn't matter which series," says Robert Byxbe, 29, who moved to Mooresville from Florida and starts July 1 at NTI. " That, or working for a good dealership."
Here's a link to the article
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/nascar/2002-05-29-institute.htm
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