Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports give $25K to Charlotte HS, inspire ‘future’ of NASCAR
Kyle Larson walked into a garage he’d never been in and sat in front of a sea of Harding University High School students. They were ready to grill him.
“What are the physical and mental demands of racing?” one student asked.
“What motivated you to pursue this career?” asked another.
“Mr. Larson,” another earnest student began, “what do you eat in preparation for racing?”
“I enjoy doing these because they always ask great questions,” Larson told The Observer with a smile. He added, “I always enjoy doing it because of that. You get real questions, thoughtful questions. … And hopefully whatever answer I may have given will motivate them to keep pushing.”
Larson — the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion and understated Hendrick Motorsports star and (for what it’s worth!) a Mexican food connoisseur — spent his Friday morning with students in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, answering questions as sincere as they come and getting a tour of Harding’s Phillip O. Berry Academy of Technology in Charlotte. He and various Hendrick Motorsports officials were on-site to donate $25,000 to the school’s automotive technology program as part of its “Hendrick. Get Set. Go!” initiative that supports STEM-based programs throughout the United States.
Along the way, Larson got to inspire part of Charlotte’s future — perhaps the future of NASCAR.
“These kids are the future of the automotive industry,” Larson said, “so getting to come in and speak to them and to see what they got going on was just amazing. You can probably check back in 10 years, and I bet a lot of them will be working for a Hendrick dealership some day, on the technician side of things, and that might’ve stemmed from today. So that’s pretty special.”
One of the kids who met Larson and even asked him a question was Nathan Herrera. The 10th-grader with a big smile is a big motorsports fan. He loves cars in general, too. His grandfather runs an automotive repair off Pence Road in east Charlotte called El Chapulin Colorado, Herrera said, and Herrera joins him every few weekends to help out. The trade has been in his family for generations.
What was it like seeing Larson?
“It’s kind of surreal,” he said, wearing a black Hendrick Motorsports T-shirt and a blue No. 5 hat. “It’s someone who’s very successful. And to see him here, to be here with us, it kind of shows me that it’s kind of possible — not to do his job but just to get to the level of professionalism that he’s at.”
Stephen Hambleton, who heads the school’s automotive technology program, said his group has done some great things, but that Friday marked “the latest greatest thing.”
The school’s program began nine years ago, Hambleton said, and he’s been a part of it for the past six years. The teacher watched as his students popped the hood of Larson’s patented blue and white design on the No. 5 Chevrolet and examined the Next Gen car parts.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to expose the students to all of what Charlotte has, with its history of racing,” Hambleton said. “Obviously, with the Hendrick auto group, the possibilities of careers, they’re endless.”
Not all the kids will be Larson. Not many in the world can be. Larson is one of the best drivers ever, on any course, in any car, on any surface — the kind of racer who hoists trophies on NASCAR’s biggest stage one day and then zooms on relatively unknown dirt racetracks the next. (He told the kids Friday that he hopes to one day be in the NASCAR and National Sprint Car halls of fame, and the 30-year-old is on his way to doing so.)
But one guy who sat next to Larson, and who’s in the Hendrick automotive family and who could serve as someone these kids aspire to be, was Jeremy Aimi. The Rick Hendrick City Chevrolet technician was asked questions, too.
His favorite question: What is the most rare car that has ever come through the shop? Aimi’s response: “A ‘63 split-window Corvette.”
In the end, just like everyone else involved in Friday’s event, Aimi hoped that this event would show that becoming a technician is not only possible, but fun, and a career worth pursuing.
“There’s a massive shortage for technicians coming into this industry,” Aimi said, citing the recent American obsession with getting four-year degrees. “So that’s the big push and that’s the biggest thing with Hendrick Automotive Group investing into these programs and developing programs in-house. … That’s the goal with any one of them — to further the young students into the industry, and then once they’re in the industry, continue to give them every opportunity to grow.”
