The Pedregon Racing modest maestro says, “You never know where the next great crew chief will come from. It could be someone that’s been in racing all their life, like Jason McCulloch (Torrence Racing), or someone who has been out in the real world with a normal 8-to-5 job or business owner that bracket races and is ready to step up to the next level, like where I came from, and commit to this lifestyle.”
With proprietary data in play and crew chiefs being rather territorial to begin with, it might be tricky to learn the trade. Worsham shares the secret, though. He says young crew members can get access to useful information — “but you have to want to do it. It’s a demanding job already. We have young guys that come up and ask questions and want to learn and progress. First, you need to learn how the car works, and once you understand how the car works, you can start asking the right questions — and then we’ll help them. I mean, you don’t want to race them the next week, but at the same time, everybody has goals, and I’d assume everybody has aspirations to be a tuner or a crew chief.
“There’s also the car chief role that came along. We didn’t always have car chiefs. We always had mechanics, and the crew chiefs would watch over the car. He’d watch the tune-up and get it all put together,” Worsham said. “But as time became an issue — we had to start making 60-minute turnarounds — somebody had to be watching the car and somebody had to be watching the tune-up. And the guy who was actually tuning was more of a tuner and not a crew chief anymore. The car chief is actually out there, making sure the car is mechanically sound, so when the tuner makes his decisions, they are applicable.”
Getting a foot in the door has been a problem in the past, but thanks to a $1 million contribution in February 2020 from drag-racing motorcycle legend and team owner Terry Vance, interested mechanics of any age have a path to a career as a crew chief through the NHRA Launch network.
Mike Rau, NHRA’s senior manager of marketing and research, who oversees the program along with day-to-day operations manager John Baadilla, said the platform has posted more than 120 jobs from Alaska to Florida “and since the beginning of this year, we already were able to place 10 candidates into opportunities within the motorsport spectrum. They include recent recruits at Summit Motorsports Park at Norwalk, Ohio, and one at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis.
“This program is built for people that have a passion for motorsports but don’t really know how to get involved. And one of the difference-makers that we believe that we’re bringing to the table is that if you are an 18-year-old or a 21-year-old kid graduating from college or a kid graduating from high school, there are opportunities for you out there. We’re working with all of our NHRA partners, contingency partners, race teams, anyone who has opportunities to potentially get involved with,” he said. “And it’s not even just young people. Essentially, we want to be the connection that helps facilitate job seekers who have a passion for motorsports with opportunities in the field. The thing that differentiates us is that we’re able to field those calls and answer questions that people may have as they start on this kind of motorsports journey.
“We expect the program to continue to grow as we get the word out,” Rau said. “A big thing for us is going to be a return to our onsite Youth and Education Services programs heading into the back of this year, getting those high-school kids out there and then letting them know that, ‘Hey, as you’re approaching your graduation date, or if you’ve already graduated,’ there are opportunities in the world of motorsports that you can apply for today. We expect dramatic growth over the next couple of years of this program. We’re still in the first 60 feet, if we’re going down the quarter-mile. So we’re off to a good start, just got to stay consistent with it.”