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School of racing

You need more than ingenuity to get a job in the auto industry these days — especially in racing.       

“You’ve got to have an education,” said John Dodson, a longtime racing pro who helped create the automotive technology program known as NASCAR Technical Institute. “These cars are so complicated today. You have to have this motorsports training.”

Education is why Army veteran and North Carolina National Guard Spc. Robert Sharp joined the military in the first place. He couldn’t afford the training to work on cars as a civilian, so he became a light-wheel vehicle mechanic in the Army.

Now he’s a student at NTI in Mooresville, N.C., and expects to graduate in April after about two years of classes. He wants to stick around the town known as Race City USA and get a job with a racing company like other successful NTI grads.

The campus in Mooresville is about 30 miles north of Charlotte in a state where auto racing is a $5 billion-a-year industry. The school has served as home to two radio shows, “NASCAR Performance Live” and an annual talk with the top 10 crew chiefs in the hunt for the Sprint Cup. It’s a convenience to many of racing’s elite who live nearby.

“These students get to rub elbows with their heroes,” Dodson said. “There’s nothing in the world like this program.”

A bonus if you’re military: NTI is a campus of Universal Technical Institute, which gives honorably discharged veterans a 15 percent discount off tuition.

The payoff

It’s apparent along NTI’s squeaky-clean corridors that the founders took a page out of NASCAR’s book.

The classrooms have sponsors.

Jasper Engines & Transmissions provides parts for students to work on and hangs its banner on a classroom wall. Students test transmissions on the Axiline Performance Dynamometer and get vouchers for $1,100 worth of Snap-On tools.

The best students get recommended for jobs in the motorsports industry — about 18 percent have gone to work in racing since the first class graduated in 2003, said Dodson, whose current community relations role includes helping graduates find jobs in the industry.

They work as machine operators and fabricators as well as car setup, engine tear-down, and paint-and-body technicians.

Another former light-wheel vehicle mechanic, Army veteran Jeremy Foy, went to work as a machine operator for Roush/Yates Engines in a Mooresville industrial park brimming with racing companies.

Foy found NTI online during a yearlong deployment to Kuwait.

“I called my wife and told her to get me enrolled,” Foy said.

With a 4.0 grade-point average and better than 98 percent attendance, he got the recommendation for his job at Roush/Yates.

His inside tip: “If you really want to make money in racing, I recommend the NASCAR program at NTI — and you also need to go and get an engineering degree.”

That’s Foy’s plan.

The program

NTI got NASCAR’s endorsement in 1999 and opened in 2002. It’s the only school with a NASCAR affiliation.

A new class starts up every three weeks, and you don’t need a mechanical background to be accepted.

The rules are strict and meant to teach students that automotive technology is a professional business. They wear brown or black work shoes and an NTI shirt — tucked in. Dangling earrings are not allowed.

The NASCAR instructors come with experience. They must have at least five years in NASCAR racing, and most have many more. Pit crew training is popular.

Many students are from North Carolina, Dodson said, but not all, so the school helps with referrals for housing and part-time jobs.

Air Force veteran Scott Manfra was an F-16 crew chief until he got out in 2006. Now he goes to NTI and works on go-karts at the NASCAR SpeedPark in Concord, N.C., about 20 miles from Mooresville.

He’s collecting GI Bill reimbursement checks each month, which he said cover most of his costs. Tuition is $24,900 to $36,500 over about a year and a half, depending on electives.

Technician shortage

While they’re still at NTI, students can add two manufacturer-specific electives — the 15-week Ford Accelerated Credential Training and nine-week Nissan Automotive Technician Training. They prepare technicians to work for dealerships or private garages.

About 92 percent of NTI’s students find jobs soon after graduation, Dodson said. He attributes the rate to a shortage in technicians across the automotive industry.

Graduates from across Universal Technical Institute’s campuses find jobs as technicians for Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Ford, BMW and Porsche, among others.

Finis Le was a mortar transport operator in the Marine Corps. Now he’s in the NASCAR program — itself an elective — and goes on to the Nissan course next.

He wants to move back to Atlanta, where he was raised, to work at a dealership and eventually open his own full-service repair and custom shop.

“Most of these young kids these days want to hook up the vehicles,” Le said. “We’re like the doctors.”