Leading Josef Newgarden's Car with Chad Gordon | FanAmp Fast Lane

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Getting his start in Motorsports

#1. What was the first moment that you can remember discovering motorsports?

I was probably two or three years old. My Great Aunt and Uncle had taken me to a local short track where I grew up, in Vermont. We were leaving early because I was so young, but as it was getting dark, and I could see the cars flying by. I think it's an easy way to catch "the bug" with the cars so close.

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#2. When did you decide that this is where you wanted to build your career? 

This wasn't until way later. It was probably my junior or senior year of high school... like really late. I had planned up until that point to go into a trade or even just become a regular auto mechanic in a dealership or a local shop somewhere. I even considered being an electrician or a contractor - just doing something with manual labor that was simple, and simple minded.

I think it was my junior year of high school... I sat through a presentation from Universal Technical Institute. They had a campus here, in Mooresville, and a racing program. Through that program, you could dip your toes into the racing world a little bit, so that was the first eye-opening experience of "okay this oculd actually be an option for me."

I just went forward with it from there!

Chad's Current Role

#3. What was your first role and the first step you took towards becoming an IndyCar Mechanic?

 When I first moved to North Carolina, I was working for a small late model stock team doing tire pressures and setting tires. I eventually worked into spotting, being a mechanic, and other roles in that sort of vein.

When I took my first professional racing job at Gary Hargett Racing, it was still entry level working tires and bodywork - doing simpler things.

That's pretty much where I got my start.

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#4. What does a standard day look like for you when you're at Penske HQ and not on the track?

 Man, it's different from day to day.

A standard day at the shop for us would be showing up at 7 AM. Typically from 7 AM to 8 AM we have one of three options: Athletic training, strength and conditioning workouts, or Pit stop practice for about an hour.

Depending on the day I could have a chiefs and managers meeting from 8AM to 9AM, and then for me it's all about managing the team. From there, it's building groups, making sure my section of the car that I manage is moving forward in the correct manner. I do that... pretty much all day.

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‍#5. What are the most rewarding and the most challenging parts of being a mechanic and leading a team in IndyCar?

Rewarding

 The most rewarding for sure are the wins, obviously.  Even though we do get a lot of them, but even the smaller ones from any race... well none of them are small because IndyCar is so competitive these days. What I mean is regular road course wins are big too, but when you get the opportunity to go and win an Indy 500, or in our case, with Josef, back to back Indy 500s... it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

Difficult

The most difficult part of the job has to be sacrificing time away from family. With our schedule, the way it works, from the beginning of March, sometimes the end of February, through August, through the middle of September, we're pretty much not home.  Those of us that have small kids have summers off.

You don't really get to see them that much. You don't get to hang out. You don't get to take summer vacations and stuff like that, and they grow up. I do have a seven month old son.  He was born the end of June, so he was born the week before mid-Ohio.

I hope he'd want to come to the track with me eventually. It all depends on where his interests lie. If he doesn't care about it, then I won't bother. I would like him to see what I do on a daily basis or why I have to leave all the time.

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#6. What are the top 3 qualities that have helped you succeed in the IndyCar space?

Say 'yes' to everything

 I don't remember who, but somebody told me a long time ago when I was young, told me that, the easiest way to do anything is to not say no to anything. If you get an opportunity, take it. The worst thing that can happen is it doesn't go well.

The same thing goes if you're asking somebody a question. You ask the question and the worst they can say is 'no'. So, anytime there's an open door, try and step through it. Even if that's doing a minuscule task of taking out trash, sweeping floors, whatever it is. There's no bad place to start.

Strong work ethic

Work ethic and positive attitude will get you far. It doesn't cost anything to show up to work with a positive attitude. Sometimes you can keep it throughout the day, sometimes you can't. At least you make an effort, right? So those two are pretty easy.

Love for the sport

That's an easy one, yeah.  The simplest way to say it is, if you're trying to do this and you don't love it, you won't be able to do it. It's way too much time away from home, and it's way too much work to not love doing it.

Chad's Advice

#7. If you could go back and change anything about your path to where you are today, what would that be? 

Learn more about the simpler things!

We're talking about nuts, bolts, hardware, and materials. It's seeing the car built from a broader picture - knowing what things are made of and how they're bolted. How to put it together and how much, certain fasteners or can withstand strength-wise, for example. It helps you to make better decisions so much further down the road if you know some of the smaller things,

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#8. If you could give one piece of advice to someone looking to follow in your footsteps what would that be?

Get any kind of experience you can on anything motorcycles, go karts, street stocks, late models, anything... Even if it's, working on your own car, but that's not always a good, that doesn't always transfer.

Not to say I've done that, but I repaired my lawnmower by myself once... but that doesn't really work for IndyCar.

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Chad's Favorites

#9. What is your favorite race/ event/ moment that you’ve had in your career thus-far?

 Yeah, in 2023, we proved a lot of things to a lot of people when we won the Indy 500.

As an entire team, having gone through what we went through at the beginning of the season, there were a lot of people that said a lot of things about the win in 2023 and how it all played out. I think we brought a more dominant car or at least a better performing car in 2024.

Not having some of the people there, it didn't really handicap us. Right? I feel like we proved a lot to a lot of people that day what this team can do.

There's always the old adage, after the first one... What's better than winning it once? Well, you go and win it twice to prove it's not a fluke. It didn't take a poorly timed restart for somebody else. We actually do know what we're doing.

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#10. What does it take to manage a team of people with different roles working on the #2 car?

 You have to be paying attention to people and understand where their strengths are including what they can and can't do. You let them play to their strengths and give them a little bit of room, right? If they have a better idea about something, or want to reroute something, or tie something up different - Allow them to talk through it, pros and cons.

Try it out, maybe in a test or something. See if it works better and give them a little bit of ownership of a corner of the car.

Then give them all the credit when it goes right.

Author's note: I asked him about managing Caitlyn Brown from the #2 Car.

You have to understand that as a leader too, right? She gets a lot of attention, and we joke around that she's the superstar of the team, right? You understand where she's coming from, and her perspective.

What she has to deal with on a day to day basis, she has to work that much harder, right? She didn't come in here expecting to just get a spot. She came in here and earned it. She worked her tail off on her own time to be better at what she wanted to do coming in here. She deserves everything she's getting.

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Want to learn more about working in IndyCar or other motorsports series? Then check out all of our Fast Lane interviews, or jump right into one of these:

• Motorsports photography with Jamey Price
• Driving and commentating with James Hinchcliffe