Calling all dreamers to Charlotte ... to change tires, detail cars

he “Get into Racing” seminar draws race fans willing to do anything to work in NASCAR.

By BRIAN SUMERS
Published July 6, 2006

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — His fingertips are permanently stained black, his reward for more than a decade of working with paint and grease.

Mark Peptula is 30, with a small circular earring hanging from his right lobe and a messy goatee framing his mouth.

A little more than 10 years ago, he begged his girlfriend to move with him to Charlotte so he could paint and detail race cars.

She said no, so he stayed home, detailing cars at Maple Street Autobody in Marlborough, Mass.

But  his dream lives on.

Alone now, and perhaps a little heartbroken (she initiated the recent breakup), he drove 13 hours to sit among 110 people who have similar dreams.  And were willing to pay $99 to pursue them. “It’s time to do something I want to do,” Peptula said. 

Mike Calinoff, a spotter for Chip Ganassi Racing, began offering one-night “Get Into Racing” seminars about six years ago as a money-making venture.

Eager pupils wonder how they might drive a team hauler. Or change tires. Or detail a car. Or sell a sponsorship. Most do not care what they do, as long as they work in racing.

In a booming voice that echoes inside the car fabrication shop near Charlotte, Calinoff tells participants they can work in NASCAR as long as they’re smart and develop a specialty.

“It doesn’t hurt if you know somebody, but it’s no different than any job,” said Calinoff, sipping Diet Coke as he critiques resumes. “If you want to be a dog groomer and you know another dog groomer, he’s probably going to help you get another job. But this is not shut off to outside people.”

 Still, life isn’t easy for these NASCAR dreamers.

“The fact of the matter is if 100 people come, 10 are going to get jobs,” said Calinoff, who puts on the seminar with eight others from the racing industry. “And three of them will maybe get to the (Nextel) Cup level. That’s it.”
For many, though, a 3 percent chance is just good enough.

***

Wearing dirty black jeans and a sweat-stained Chevrolet Racing hat, Peptula is scruffier than the others. Most dress in khakis and buttoned down shirts, hoping to catch an eye with their wardrobe.Not Peptula. He is a bodywork professional, proud of his stains and dark fingers.

But though he brags he could detail a NASCAR car as fast as anyone, he worries he will never get a job.“I was told it was like the mafia,” he said. “You can’t get in. And when you want to get out, you can’t get out.”He will try, however.

Peptula’s house is for sale, and he promises this will be his final summer working in Marlborough.
Not everyone wants to detail cars, but plenty of others share Peptula’s desire to move on.

Take  Josh Philpott, 24, of Waverly, N.Y., who works in customer relations for a company that leases forklift equipment. He spends his days responding to complaints and lodging his own.

“I’m not happy with what I do,” said Philbott, who must wear a tie to work, a fashion accoutrement he believes is unnecessary. “I have to get my bills paid so I have to do it. I do it out of necessity.”

To attend the seminar, Philbott called in sick, and he slept in an Interstate 81 rest area in Virginia the night before to save money.

Though his girlfriend calls him “a little nuts,” she promised she would move to Charlotte. Philbott, who once drove go-carts and quarter midgets, hopes to talk his way into a job as a team administrator and then, perhaps, drive a car.

He takes three full pages of notes, hoping the words of wisdom will help him find a job.

All he wants is a chance.

***

Megan Shortle stands out.

They are a growing minority on NASCAR teams, but women are still heavily outnumbered by the men who dominate the garages.

Shortle, a Purdue University mechanical engineering major, is spending the summer in Lexington Ky., interning as an assembly and production engineer for Toyota.

And when she found the seminar by surfing the Internet, she drove to Charlotte.

A racing fan since she performed at the Indianapolis 500 with the Purdue marching band a couple of years ago,

Shortle knows men like to question her.

Still, she can usually impress them by sharing tidbits from her recent school paper on the history of automotive suspensions.

“It’s interesting to go places and they look at you surprised when you know what you’re talking about,” said Shortle, a Cleveland native.

Kendra McAfee of Kansas City, Mo., loves cars, too, though she hopes to find a job in marketing.

Anything will beat her current job: helping the restaurant chain Applebee’s print its training and human resources materials.

A Casey Mears fan with a degree in sports marketing and management from the University of Missouri, McAfee scribbles copious notes in purple pen as she chews gum.

She thinks she knows the secret to a new career.

“It’s a lot of who is in the right place at the right time,” she said.

McAfee receives unsolicited encouragement from 50-year-old Gerry Newman, who sits three folding chairs away.

A restaurant manager near Charlotte, Newman said she recently moved from Durhamville, N.Y., (population about 2,000) to get close to racing.

It’s a passion she has cultivated for three decades, well before, she points out, the Danica Patrick craze. About 30 years ago, the “boys in town” built her a late-model car.

There are no 50-year-old women drivers in the Nextel Cup, but she is not deterred.

“If I could find a ride down here,” she said, “I’d go in a heartbeat.”

It is hard to tell whether she is serious.

***

At 55, Russell Schmidt has tried everything.

A racing fan since age 5, Schmidt is the jack-of-all trades at a local track in Virginia, a combination public relations maven and track announcer. He has driven to Charlotte before to plead for an opportunity.

“I think people can hear it in my voice that I’m discouraged,” he said, signing.

But he cannot give up. Not yet.

“I think a few more years, that’s it,” the bearded man said. “I’m not getting any younger. I’ve been around the block.”

He is part of a large collection of baby boomers and near baby boomers who hope for a second career in the sport they have always loved. Many have earned enough money to take a chance and relocate.

 As mechanic for the town of Biddeford, Maine, Steve Collomy jokes he fixes everything “from weed whackers to fire trucks.”

How different, he wonders, could race cars be?

Now that his kids are gone from the house, Collomy, 46, wants to find out. His wife prodded him to move, and she already has found a job in Charlotte as a nurse.

They have sold their house, as he trolls for a job.

“I’m that serious,” Collomy said.

Then there is Greg Smith, a stout, bald Navy cryptologist who intends to retire in October after 20 years. At 40, he says it’s time for a new career.

His wife works for the Department of Justice in a job so secretive Smith said he couldn’t share it and she intends to transfer to Charlotte.

Smith’s current job involves monitoring satellites, but he hopes to drive a NASCAR team’s hauler.

 Throughout the seminar, Smith carries a black leather case under his left arm and listens intently.

Among the other participants, his perfect posture stands out.

***

Bryan Beckner, 25, calls himself a marketable figure.

The fast-talking wannabe driver and part-time mechanic wears a silver chain around his neck and a gray T-shirt featuring his name in script.

Of the more than 100 participants, he is one of the few who actually expects to drive.

With drivers on feeder series desperate to move up, it will be nearly impossible for Beckner to get noticed from his local track.

But he tries, selling his personality more than his driving ability.

And like a professional, Beckner drops his sponsor, Southern Pride Builders, into an interview, even as he speaks with an out-of-town reporter.

For the panelists, who just might help introduce him to the right people, the South Carolina native brings a color picture of his renegade car, a blue and white replica of Dale Earnhardt’s 1980 model.

Beckner thinks he can be the one-in-a-million, the guy who goes from the local track to national stardom.

“It’s not impossible,” he said.

Not impossible. But close.

Beckner is a dreamer, like most of the racing enthusiasts who descend upon Charlotte each year.

He might drive a Nextel Cup car someday.

He might win the lottery, too.

Or get hit by lightning.

But for him — and everyone else — it’s worth a chance.

[Last modified July 6, 2006, 22:51:04]