NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
SIX QUESTIONS
JUNE 8, 2016
SIX QUESTIONS WITH KEVIN BAYLESS, CHEVROLET RACING NASCAR CHASSIS AND AERODYNAMICS PROGRAM MANAGER
Aerodynamicist Works with Team Chevy to Continue Winning Legacy
CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW YOU GOT INTO THE FIELD OF AERODYNAMICS?
“Straight out of college I started work for GM on production car stuff. I actually designed bumpers. They sent all of us new hires up to Detroit for like three days of seminars telling us about different parts of the company. Dick Amacher was there and talked for a few minutes about Chevy Race Shop. I had always been involved in racing growing up. My uncle’s owned sprint cars for years, drag cars, all that sort of stuff. I went up to Dick after he spoke and said ‘hey can I get a business card, because that is what I would like to do one of these days.’ He gave me his card. My wife was still in school at Purdue so I was still working close to Purdue. When she got ready to graduate was about the same time GM consolidated all of the racing divisions into one. I read about it in National Speed Sport News. I thought, okay they are putting all this stuff together, so I dug out Dick Amacher’s business card and called him up and asked if they were going to have openings. He said yes and I wound up with an offer to move to Michigan. My wife also ended up with a job offer in Michigan. So we moved up there in January of 1992 was when I started at GM Motorsports Technology Group is what it was then. I worked there from 1992-1996. Then wound up an illness in the family moved back to Indy where my family was all from. I worked for an IndyCar team for a couple of years, worked for the Trans-Am Series and then I got called back because they were looking for somebody to do chassis and aero work on the IndyCar program based in Indy. I started back with GM in 2001 and have been there ever since. I was a mechanical engineer in school, always wanted to do racecar design that was why I took mechanical engineering. I did a little bit of aero stuff in school, but basically wound up at the right place at the right time.” Continue reading Chevy Racing–NASCAR–6 Questions →
