Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation

PHCC Motorsports grad lands a job with NASCAR

Jul 24, 2007
By DREW EARY - Bulletin Staff Writer. While many auto racing fans watch NASCAR on Sundays, wishing they could be at the track in the stands, Patrick County resident Galen Biggs actually will be at the track.

Only he’ll be on the job.

Biggs, 34, who lives in the Five Forks community just south of Stuart, will start a new job with NASCAR as an engine inspector on Aug. 1.

“I’m going to be driving down to Concord for orientation at NASCAR’s R and D (research and development) center there for orientation the first day,” he said. “From there, the next thing will be me flying out to Pocono for my first race.”

One of his primary tasks at the races will be to operate a “whistler” device that measures the displacement of an engine, Biggs said.

“Otherwise they are going to have me working with the new engine components that manufacturers submit to NASCAR to be approved for competition,” he said. “I am going to be working with some of the newest stuff and the smartest guys in NASCAR.”

Biggs, who has worked at a machine shop in Patrick County for several years, said he looks forward to starting his new job and hopes he will not have too much trouble getting adjusted.

“I want to make the transition as smooth as possible,” he said. “They tell me that a lot of the teams are going to be giving me a hard time and trying to see what they can get past me. A lot of them will be giving me a hard time because I am the new guy.”

But Biggs thinks the transition will go well once he gets in and gets comfortable.

“I have been working around engines for a good while now, and I don’t think it will be too bad,” he said.

Biggs, a recent graduate of the motorsports engine technologies program at Patrick Henry Community College, has been working on race engines for several years in his own drag race car.

“I have a ’71 Nova that I used to run in the Top Eliminator classes at some of the local tracks,” he said. “I have always built my engines for that, but they were mild engines compared to what I learned about at school.”

With what he learned in the motorsports program, Biggs said he should be able to build a much more powerful racing engine.

Biggs said he credits much of getting his new job to being able to work with teachers who had real-life NASCAR experience, especially the teacher of the racing engines classes, Lou LaRosa.

LaRosa is a retired NASCAR engine builder who built engines for drivers such as David Pearson and Cale Yarborough. LaRosa even built the engines that brought Dale Earnhardt his first pole at Riverside California in 1979 and first win at Bristol that same year.

The education Biggs received at PHCC is “priceless,” he said.

“I have heard what they charge people to go to NASCAR Technical Institute,” he said. “And what we pay for two years at PHCC is nothing compared to that.”

Biggs’ thoroughness probably got him the job with NASCAR, LaRosa said.

“He’s very methodical,” he said. “Galen is one of those guys that takes his time when he does something.”

What impressed LaRosa the most about teaching Biggs was that Biggs was not afraid to give up a job he had for 15 years to pursue a new career.

“He was one of those guys who was working, going to school, and even racing his own drag car,” he said. “You really got to respect a guy who has the confidence to go out and do that, especially a guy in his thirties.”

LaRosa said the most remarkable thing about Biggs being hired into NASCAR is that he was hired despite the difficult standards to which NASCAR holds its inspectors.

“They make you practically jump through hoops now,” LaRosa said. “With Galen, I know he had to drive down there (Concord N.C.) for several interviews and go through background checks before they hired him, and the fact that he got in is just great.”

Jeff Fields, dean of PHCC’s applied sciences and engineering program, said Biggs is just one of the many success stories to come out of PHCC.

“What makes our program different is that here we have the facilities to do anything a professional race team would do, and that helps make a better learning experience for our students,” he said. “In turn, that helps them get hired.”

Fields also said that the college’s Late Model Stock racecar, which the college races at South Boston raceway and other area tracks, helps students by providing them with even more real-life racing experience.

For now, Biggs plans to continue to live in Patrick County and commute to work.

“During the season I will have to work in Concord one day a week,” he said. “So I guess I will just drive down there. On the weekends I will be flying to the tracks out of Greensboro.”

Biggs also said he hopes he can continue to drag-race some.

“The month of December is looking good right now,” he said. “That’s about the only time I will be able to get any of that (drag-racing) in.”