Genre Piece Final

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Jacob Eichholtz
Rebecca Agosta
UWRT 1103
19 November 2014
Racing to the Top
“As an engineer, I’m constantly spotting problems and plotting how to solve them”
(James Dyson). For my genre piece, I have decided to study the discourse community of racing
mechanics, because I hope to become a racing mechanic one day. Racing engineers and racing
mechanics are the unsung heroes of the sport, and while the drivers get all the attention, the
mechanics and engineers are the ones who are putting hours upon hours in to find the best
possible set-up for a car so that the driver can go out and look good on the track. They play a
huge role in the sport, and are probably even more important than the driver. Without a good
team around, no driver can be successful in racing. I did different kinds of research, including
observation, to determine what being a racing mechanic entails and how people get involved in
the community. Each resource brought me to a different conclusion about how racing mechanics
get jobs, interact with each other, and excel in their jobs.
I will fully detail my methods of research in the methods section of this essay, but I
would like to take the time to briefly describe the difference between my sources and how each
source delivers something useful that I can analyze and gain a better understanding of what it
means to be a racing mechanic, how to become one, and the type of work involved.
My primary research method was an observation I did of a video that was posted to
YouTube of a tour around the garage area during a NASCAR race weekend. This was important
because it shows what goes on during a race weekend, and it gives a true look at the work

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mechanics do rather than them taking you on a pre-meditated behind the scenes tour which might
not always be factual. The secondary resource I used was an interview with Alba Colon, the head
of engineering for Chevrolet’s NASCAR program. This was another useful resource because it
gave great information on how to become a mechanic in racing, and it offered a different
perspective.
Methods
After gathering several different resources that I felt could help me understand the
discourse community of racing mechanics, I singled out the most important ones that I believed
could give me the most information to use and analyze. The primary resource was a 20-minute
video of a NASCAR garage tour that was given by Motor Racing Network’s Steve Post during
the race weekend for the 2012 race at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. This was not an official
video, but rather the tour was given and filmed in its entirety by a fan who later uploaded it to
YouTube. From the tour video, I was able to gather lots of information to help me understand the
way mechanics work without showing off for the cameras.
First, the tour entered the garage area, and we could see the cars lined up in their
respective garage stalls getting ready for a practice session, and the crews were hard at work to
prepare these cars to the best possible set-up as instructed by the crew chief. The tour walked
down the length of the garage building, and it was possible to see mechanics underneath the car,
under the hood, in the action of talking with each other, and going to different places around the
infield to retrieve important parts. All the while, Steve Post was narrating the tour, although the
tour itself was geared toward people who were probably new to racing and trying to understand
the basics, it was still helpful to get some explanation to go along with the visuals all around.
First, mechanics were often seen at various places around the infield. This is because there are a

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lot of different important places that are needed to get the right equipment. Some mechanics go
to the Goodyear hauler to pick up the tires they need. Some go to the Sunoco station to fill up the
gas cans that will be used later. Others go back into the team hauler to get spare tools and things
like that. You can see how mechanics move around and have to communicate with each other to
get things done.
The other main resource I used was an interview with Alba Colon from Chevrolet
conducted by CNN in September of this year. Alba Colon is the lead engineer for Chevrolet’s
NASCAR program and is in charge of overseeing the Chevrolet teams and making sure that
some of the sport’s biggest stars are able to be competitive on a weekly basis. Colon, however, is
very different than the majority of people in the NASCAR garage. She is a woman from Puerto
Rico who grew up wanting to be an astronaut. NASCAR is dominated by white males in pretty
much every position there is, so when someone different comes in and is successful, it is a great
story. She went to school to become an astronaut, but she became involved with the Society of
Automotive Engineers and her passion for racing ignited from there, and she took a job with GM
in 1994 as a data acquisitions manager for their race teams. She gives a lot of insight into her
own experiences working as an engineer and a mechanic in racing, and her differences from
most of her colleagues. She also spoke a lot about her education and how that led her to where
she is today. She also spoke about kid’s views on education today. "Many of these students, the
examples they have at home is parents that didn't finish school," she said. "So I want to show
them hey, I am a Hispanic kid and I worked hard to get where I am. You can be like me. You
don't have to stop when you finish high school. You can keep going. This is the generation of 'I
want everything now, and I will try to say so they understand that you have to work for what you
want. You cannot go and get everything immediately. Hard work and study got me to have a fun

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job today." Another interesting point she brought up was the way society, young people in
particular, view the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). "When you are
studying a lot and you're good in math and science, what do they call you? They call you a nerd
right? So we as a society have to change that—hey, it's cool to be a nerd." She makes the point
that being a science and math geek can pay off, both in salary and in cool job experiences that
most “non-nerd” jobs would never be able to have.
Analysis
These resources show that there are several different ways to get into the discourse
community of racing mechanics. Obviously, the two main ways are illustrated in the two sources
talked about above. First, many mechanics started out in this field because they had a father, or
an uncle, or a friend who raced on local short tracks and needed the help to set up the cars. They
learned how to work on race cars and decided to pursue it for a living, and taking positions at
different teams until they reached the top. The other way, the one that is beginning to be more
prevalent, and the way I want to enter the discourse community, is through college education.
Many colleges, UNC Charlotte included, have specific motorsports engineering programs that
allow students to gain experience working with the Society of Automotive Engineers clubs, like
Alba Colon did. From there, the students get internships with the top teams right away, and then
either stay on full-time or maybe work in the lower levels of racing before moving back up to the
top. In racing, it hasn’t been proven which way is more successful. Most of racing’s history
included mechanics who came from the first way, the “old-fashioned” way. It has not been until
recently that college educated engineers have started working on race cars like they’re some sort
of NASA spacecraft. It will be interesting to see going forward if there ever is a conclusive
difference between the two learning methods. In an ever changing world, it is important to keep

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up with technology and racing is a platform for many technologies to be displayed on. Above all,
the mechanics, the ones behind the scenes, are the ones who must adapt to this change and use it
to their benefit. The discourse community of racing engineers can change over time, yet there is
still specific lexis, specific ways of communicating that will always be around no matter what
technology is thrown at them.

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Works Cited
Berenis, Michael. "NASCAR behind the Scenes: Garage and Pit Tour with Steve Post."
YouTube. YouTube, 23 Nov. 2012. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.
Baer, Rebecca A. "Female NASCAR Engineer Makes Science Cool." CNNMoney. Cable News
Network, 06 Oct. 2014. Web. 01 Nov. 2014