YHS grad helps keep things on track

Brad Larsen builds racecars - a task that is far from easy

by Earlene Ward - Yosemite High School District

 

Brad Larsen

"YHS math pays off, after all"

 

Being the youngest mechanic on a racecar crew is stressful work, but it is also challenging and exciting.

Brad Larsen, a 1999 Yosemite High School graduate, has been helping build racecars for Chip Ganassi Racing in Indianapolis the past two years. There is a lot of pressure on the job, he commented recently. Every time the car goes on the track, "it’s going to go 200 miles per hour," he said, "someone's life is in your hands."

The Ganassi team built the car driven by Juan Montoya when he won the Indianapolis 500 in 2000. Last year, the team’s cars won seven races.

Mr. Larsen, who is a front-end mechanic for the team, started as a fabricator. He says the skills he learned in the Regional Occupational Program (ROP) welding class at YHS helped him get that job.

With most of the mechanics ranging in age from 30-50 years, Mr. Larsen says his youth has been difficult at times. This is frustrating to other mechanics sometimes, he says. He commented that it was especially difficult when he first started working for the company while still in his teens. The other mechanics thought I was going to want to take their job, he said.

In time, these issues resolved themselves and now we are just a big family, he says of the team.

 

Math is important

It takes about a week to build a racecar from scratch. Fifteen people work on it until it is finished and then two or three people stay with the car after it is built.

One of the things that surprised Mr. Larsen the most about the field is the amount of mathematics he has to use. Everything is numbers, he says. He wasn’t aware of this in high school so did not take such classes as geometry and trigonometry but wishes he had.

During a race, Mr. Larsen works in the pit where drivers stop to have tires changed and re-fuel. He is responsible for changing the inside rear tire; his record time is three and a-half seconds.

Working in the pit is not without danger; he has been hit twice. Once a car spun out as it came into the pit and hit his leg. Another time a car came in too fast and pinned him between a tire and the wall. He was not injured either time.

The highlight of his career so far is being the lead mechanic for two cars in the 2001 Indy 500. Part of his job was strapping the driver in the car and making sure he was settled and happy.

 

Too-tall Brad

While he straps drivers in, helps build and then repair the car; Mr. Larsen will never know what it is like to drive one. He is too tall. At 6’1", he simply won’t fit. He says it’s a real tight fit for someone who is 5’10" or 5’11".

A lot of time is spent testing the cars before the races. After spending the holidays with his parents, Rex and Terri Larsen of Coarsegold, he went to Monterey where there would be tests at Laguna Seca and then he was off to Florida.

The race season starts March 10 and continues until the beginning of November. The month of May is spent testing the cars for the Indy 500.

Mr. Larsen has enjoyed working on cars for several years. He bought his first pickup to restore when he was 13.

Two of his uncles were mechanics for the Ganassi team, now retired, and "got me in the door," he says.

 

It’s a career

Mr. Larsen says he definitely wants to stay in this career: "There are a lot of places for me to go."

Joe Mahle, the ROP welding teacher at YHS, says Mr. Larsen has "one of the most visible careers to come out of my program." He says he is proud of the young man who left the mountains for Indianapolis when he was just 18 years old.

"I'm really proud of him for sticking with it," Mr. Mahle says. He also comments that he is flattered and pleased that he and Mr. Larsen are friends and that he still comes to visit him when he is in town.