[Sci-tech-public] FW: Invitation: The World of NASCAR Motorsports

[David Mindell]

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MIT Industrial Performance Center

Presentation on the NASCAR Motorsports Industry

Open to the MIT Community

 

>From Junior Johnson to Jimmy Johnson, from craftsmanship to FEA, CFD and
advanced manufacturing, there is much more to NASCAR motorsports than it
seems:  60 years of technology history, high-performance teams,
high-performance engineering, an innovation-intensive multi-billion dollar
industry, 450 businesses and ~18,000 jobs clustered in the "Motorsports
Valley" around Charlotte, NC, and much more. 

 

The World of NASCAR Motorsports

 

Speaker: Andy Papathanassiou

Executive Director of the North Carolina Motorsports Association

 

Date: Tuesday, September 18th

Time: 12-1pm

Location: E51-372

 

About the speaker: A highly-successful three-sport athlete through his years
as a bachelor's in Economics and master's in Organizational Behavior student
at Stanford University, Andy Papashanassiou has been involved in NASCAR
motorsports since 1991. Two months after sneaking into the garage area and
volunteering for a team on race day at the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA,
Andy moved to Charlotte and started work as a garage hand for several years
in various NASCAR crews. He detected an opportunity to organize the work of
pit crews and in 1992 he was offered a job with Hendrick Motorsports as the
first ever pit crew coach for the newly formed Dupont race team, driven by
Jeff Gordon.   Andy's pioneering efforts to build strength, coordination and
improve the timing of pit crews helped Hendrick Motorsports teams win the
1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Championships, and
became a standard procedure throughout the industry. Today, Andy continues
as the Pit Crew Coordinator for all of Hendrick Motorsports, which has 560
full-time employees including pilots, mechanics, engineers, business and
administrative staffs.  From 2000-2006 Andy was the company's Personnel
Director where he worked with contracts, bonus programs, HR, safety &
compliance, employee and driver development. In 2006 Andy was elected as
Executive Director of the North Carolina Motorsports Association (NCMA).  In
that role he is involved in public policy, workforce development and other
events benefiting the 5.9 billion dollar North Carolina Motorsports
industry.

 

For more information contact Dr. Carlos Martinez-Vela, camv at mit.edu,
617-253-7871.

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