Working at the office or in the shop is one thing, but going to the track always puts everything into perspective for me. As an avid NASCAR fan my entire life, I have grown up with a love for racing, following the National Series week in and week out. Little did I know that I was missing a huge part of NASCAR that I knew hardly anything about: NASCAR Home Tracks. Working in the Weekly and Touring Department for the summer has introduced me to a part of NASCAR that I have come to love. I went to a few weekly races at Houston Motorsports Park growing up, but now, I have a whole new appreciation for grassroots racing.

As a Diversity Intern in this

department, I had the opportunity to travel to Connecticut with Lauren Wescoat, the manager of Weekly Racing Operations. We visited three different NASCAR Home Tracks in three days: Thompson Speedway, Stafford Motor Speedway, and Waterford Speedbowl. Part of our job is to travel to our NASCAR Home Tracks and visit with the promoters, competitors, sponsors, and fans. This allows us the opportunity to show support for their race programs, keep current with industry practices, oversee sponsorship fulfillment, and to continuously find ways to improve our program. Not to mention, watch some exciting weekly racing! I was able to watch some incredible drivers well known in the New England area, who compete in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, and who are former national and regional champions.

I was also fortunate enough to catch the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Waterford Speedbowl. I found it interesting to see how weekly events and touring events compare. I gained valuable insight to how each series is run, and even got to watch tech inspection up close after the touring race. The officials were happy to teach me about the inspection process, and as an engineering student, I definitely soaked it all in. After watching so much racing weekly racing, I can now say watching modifieds is a new favorite of mine.

One of the best parts about grassroots racing is seeing how passionate these drivers and teams are. All of the tracks we visited were about an hour apart. Most of these drivers race at all three tracks every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. They truly make racing their livelihood, work on extremely tight budgets, and are the foundation of this sport.

 

Aside from racing, a few highlights from the weekend included visiting the Basketball Hall of Fame, eating a lobster roll for the first time, and touring the Whelen Engineering Headquarters facility in Chester, Connecticut. Phil Kurze, VP of Whelen Engineering, shared with us the history of Whelen, current projects they are involved in, and gave us a tour of their entire Whelen Engineering facility.  It was incredible to see how they create their products with such precision, and how passionate the Whelen employees are about what they do. I am so grateful to have had this amazing opportunity and am looking forward to learning more about this side of the business. Regardless of where my education takes me, I know that I can find a local track to get involved at as I pursue my career in motorsports.

This summer has been packed with racing! I saw some incredible weekly racing in Connecticut, traveled to Atlanta Dragway with Larsen Motorsports this last weekend for the Night of Fire, will be going to the Independence Day race at New Smyrna this Wednesday, will be attending the Subway Firecracker 250 on Friday, and the Coke-Zero 400 on Saturday!  So watch out for some exciting race updates this next week! (: I hope you’re pumped because I know I am!!