NASCAR Nirvana

Join us as we tour the Ultimate Mopar Garages in the heart of NASCAR country.

Words: Roger Meiners

Nirvana (noun) nir·va·na [nir-vah-nuh, -van-uh, ner-] 1. spiritual enlightenment 2. completely enjoyable experience.

This Buddhist term might be sacrilegiously applied to the happy state of mind we found ourselves in by accepting Dodge Racing’s once-in-a-lifetime invitation to spend a week in NASCAR country. We had the unique opportunity to visit at all the Dodge teams’ garages centered near Charlotte, North Carolina, for an inside look at the epitome of race engineering in the United States.

Talk about the ultimate Mopar® Garages.

We brought along two video teams and a bushel basket of HD recording media to document and share our findings with Mopar enthusiasts. This material will soon begin showing on DodgeBoysRacing.com and other Mopar-related Web sites.

We also took a thousand or so digital still photos to share the experience with our Mopar Magazine readers. With that being said, we’ll cut the words off here and let these spectacular photos tell the story of our week in the ultimate Mopar garages.

Petty Enterprises – Mooresville, N.C.

Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty

Founded as Lee Petty Engineering in 1949, the name changed to Petty Enterprises in 1969. Recently the organization headquarters moved to a new 118,000 square foot facility in Mooresville, N.C. The two-building complex includes an 88,000 sq. ft. Main Assembly Shop and a 30,000 sq. ft. Fabrication Shop. The fab shop assembles chassis on two large flat surface plates and hangs the body panels using another six surface plates for reference.

The Main Assembly Shop completes the build process with paint, graphics, fuel and electrical systems and of course the 800-horsepower Dodge-Mopar pushrod V8 engines. This shop has four surface plates for chassis setup and a “pull-down” rig that is used to check suspension limits for various tracks—to make sure the relationship of the body elements and suspension are optimum for best mechanical and aerodynamic performance.

Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates – Concord, N.C.

Bryan Clauson, Juan Pablo Montoya and Reed Sorenson

The team’s NASCAR headquarters was built in 2004 with the help of longtime partner/sponsor TARGET’s construction team. At the time of completion CGRFS was the largest single new employer in Cabarus County, North Carolina. The 185,000 square foot main facility has an open floor plan that allows all teams to work openly together for information sharing. Other areas include a machine shop with state of the art CNC mills, a sub-assembly shop (brakes, rotors, steering, suspension), a parts department, fabrication shop (all chassis and body work), a carbon fiber shop (seats, ducts, miscellaneous), and a six-bay paint and body shop. A large truck bay allows eight full-size NASCAR transporters to load and un-load indoors within the climate controlled environment. A full-service weight room with personal trainers keeps team members in top condition. Most NASCAR teams now consider their pit crews to be professional athletes and provide training facilities accordingly.

Also located on the campus is the 36,000 square foot Engine Facility, built in 2006 in collaboration with Ernie Elliott Inc. Elliot was a major factor in his brother Bill’s huge success as a NASCAR champion.

The second floor contains Engineering, Competition and Business Operations offices. In all, CGRFS employees nearly 250 people.

Penske Racing – Mooresville, N.C.

Kurt Busch and Sam Hornish Jr.

Facilities are on 105 acres in Mooresville, N.C. Two buildings that once housed the Matsushita Compressor Corp. of America in the Mooresville Business Park total 424,697 square feet. In June 2004 Roger Penske bought the facility and the NASCAR teams were in residence by March 2005. They occupy 240,781 square feet. That’s equivalent to eight acres under roof. Also contained in the building’s NASCAR section are 17 surface plates, three paint booths, three body prep stations, a Rapid Prototyping Department and an aero scale model shop.

The IndyCar Series and ALMS teams were there in early 2007. They occupy 55,843 square feet in the facility. A 4,986 square-foot gift shop provides visitors access to a 330-foot fan walk above the garage floor.

Gillett Evernham Racing – Mooresville, N.C.

Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and Patrick Carpentier

Founded in 1999, Gillett Evernham Motorsports has more than 300 employees in six separate businesses.

Team headquarters and race facilities are located in three Statesville, NC buildings totaling 165,000 square feet. The Museum and Gift Shop is also based in Statesville. Visitors can view cars being assembled by team members.

Gillett Evernham Engines is in Concord, N.C., where the Dodge Magnum 5.9 liter engine is developed and built. This facility features computer modeling systems, engine build tooling and dynamometer test cells. The company supplies engines for other race teams including Petty Enterprises. Gillet Evernham’s Advanced Engine Technology lab is located in Northhampton, England. The company designs and manufactures state-of-the-art products for the automotive industry.

Robby Gordon Motorsports – Charlotte, N.C.

Robby Gordon

Robbie Gordon Motorsports’ 60,000 sq. ft. NASCAR shop in Charlotte, N.C., is right-sized for a one-car Dodge Charger team. The facility develops, builds, sets up, tests, and races cars to the highest competitive standards. Two “COT (Car of Tomorrow) Templates” hang from the ceiling. These huge trapeze-like assemblies are used during each stage of body construction to make certain the car is legal to race. The NASCAR tech inspectors have these template grids at the track to make sure all cars meet the COT design rules. Gordon is one of the great off-road and road course drivers and certainly no pushover on the ovals.