Lee White, Just a Racer

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Lee White, Just a Racer Much has changed over the past 40 years for Lee White, from auto crossing in college to buying his first race car in 1969 (a Lucas Titan F3) to his current position as the President and General Manager of Toyota Racing Development (TRD, U.S.A.). Yet, in some ways, nothing has changed."I'm just a racer who grew up as a farm kid in the Missouri Ozark Mountains and who loved mechanical things, competition and fast cars. I can’t say any of that has changed,” says White.Just a racer. Always has been, always will be. While White may see himself that way, a better description may be that he's just a WINNER. In those 40 years, White's prepared engines and overseen racing programs that have accumulated more than 500 victories and close to 50 championships. Included in those victories were 43 for Toyota in NASCAR's top three touring series last year - the most by any manufacturer."I had no doubt whatsoever that we'd eventually win in NASCAR. It was just a matter of getting together with the right people and evolving the program similar to how we did it in Indy car racing. But, first we had to prove ourselves."And prove themselves Toyota and TRD has. Three consecutive titles in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and a team and manufacturer's championship in last year's Nationwide Series are living proof, as well as powering Kyle Bush to an all-time NASCAR single-season record 21 victories in 2008.Some competitors have suggested that Toyota’s success has come from having more resources than its competitors – talk that White quickly dismisses.“People who suggest that don't know what they're talking about. TRD is the leanest operating business that I've ever been associated with. We achieve far beyond what we're funded to do. I’m fortunate to have had direct experience working with some of our competitors and knowing what they spent. At TRD, it's not a matter of dollars, but a matter of people and process. Toyota has invested in TRD, while our competitors practice has been to invest in individual teams. Our approach has allowed us to do more with less.”Of course White’s career hasn’t always been in the forefront. His career in racing started as an amateur driver in the 1970’s. But it wasn’t on the track where he’d make his mark, but behind the scenes, eventually making a name for himself as an engineer and engine-builder. He climbed up through the ranks beginning with the SCCA, the IMSA Champion Spark Plug Challenge sedan series and developing and building engines for the now-defunct NASCAR Baby Grand Series.For the most part, his early professional life wasn't much different than most aspiring racers - working in an NAPA Auto Parts store in Illinois, grinding valves and polishing crankshafts for farm machinery by day, building race engines for road racing, tractor pulling and hydroplane boats at night. It was in 1980 that his career in racing really started to take off as he helped prepare a Porsche 924 D production kit car for SCCA national champion Tom Brennan and much of the boost came only after a practice crash wrecked the team's car."We were able to get another kit sent to us by Al Holbert that night," said White. "We built the entire car overnight, started last on the grid and finished second to Holbert’s car in the National Championship”.With that result in hand, Porsche asked Brennan to crew a factory effort at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 1981 and White volunteered to help crew the car. That led to his hiring by Paul Miller to run his semi-factory Porsche effort in the SCCA Trans-Am sedan series. White packed up his family and moved across country to New Jersey where life on the fast track was just beginning. He and one employee ran the race team, did the engine work, bolted the cars together, machined every part and even painted the cars. By 1985, the small team had started to become a consistent thorn in the side of the series factory teams - and made a lingering impression on the Ford factory Roush Racing team.At season's end, Jack Roush hired White as to run the team's new Merkur program in Trans-Am competition in 1986. It was a great opportunity to be a team manager and engineer an established major factory effort - or so White thought."Protofab (the Chevrolet factory team) came in and hired away most of the Roush Trans-Am team after Thanksgiving. At the same time there was a rule change by the SCCA and the planned Zakspeed GTP engine was no longer allowed for Trans-Am. So when I arrived for my first day on the job, there was a program, but no engine and no crew - and we had to go racing in California in May. It definitely made things challenging. In the mornings, I'd put on a tie and go to work on the administrative side trying to put a team together. After lunch, it was off to the machine shop to try to create an engine for the Merkur. At night, Lynn, my wife would come by the shop and bring us a dinner and we'd be there until after midnight."In the meantime, White also was tasked with getting four IMSA Mustangs ready to run the 24 hour race in Daytona in January. The result was the first of six consecutive IMSA GTO victories at the Daytona 24 for the White-led Roush Racing team. As the Trans-Am season began, the new team finished second in its debut race, but inevitably went through some early growing pains. By June, the team won its first race with a Merkur and was becoming a consistent contender. Yet, the manufacturer's title appeared to be out of the question when the team went into the season finale some 12 points out of the lead -- when the team entered five cars and proceeded to finish 1-2-3-4-5 and snatched away the title in what White describes as one of his most memorable career championship moments.That championship season would mark the first of five consecutive years where White’s teams won at least one championship, culminating in no less than five titles in 1989 (driver's championships in Trans-Am, IMSA GTO, IMSA Endurance and manufacturer's titles in both Trans-Am and IMSA as well as Rookie of the Year and Driver of the Year in Trans Am, and overall Crew Chief of the Year in IMSA).It was during his run as team manager from 1986 through 1991 that White also received his first taste of NASCAR Sprint Cup competition as he helped Roush get his NASCAR team started in 1988. “My years of competing with Jack Roush were both challenging and some of the best years of my life” recalls White. “Jack and I are still fierce competitors and great friends and I credit him with teaching me how to win at a level I never dreamed possible”.As the Roush team dominated sports car racing for six years, White began to look for a new challenge. He talked with now-NASCAR team owner George Gillette about potentially establishing a new Indy car program for CART competition in 1991, but the logistical problems of starting a new team in Vail, Colo., were too substantial. Instead, White looked just down the road from the Roush shops in Livonia, Mich., to Lansing, where he was hired by Rocketsports Racing to build and run the team's new Oldsmobile IMSA GTO and GTS programs. After taking over in December, White assembled the cars and teams that would go on to win the 12 Hours of Sebring just over three months later. That debut season went on to include nine wins and the team's first championship with Irv Hoerr behind the wheel of the team's GTO car. The following season, the team brought Oldsmobile its first GTS Manufacturer's championship. The next year, team owner Paul Gentilozzi gave up the Oldsmobile program, but elected to run one of Clayton Cunningham's cars in the major endurance events and immediately won the overall title at the Rolex 24 Hours. The team then went on to win the 12 Hours of Sebring and the IMSA GTS class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.In late 1994, White accepted an opportunity to move from the ranks of “tin top” racers and join the front line Championship Auto Racing Team, Newman Haas Racing, as Team Manager. With drivers Michael Andretti, Mario Andretti, Paul Tracy and Christian Fittipaldi, White was able to learn a completely new motorsports discipline and perform on the national motorsports stage.After a successful run with NHR, a new opportunity presented itself in October, 1997 - that coming with Toyota Racing Development (TRD, USA), which was struggling during the infancy of its Indy car program. A Sunday meeting at the season finale in Fontana turned into a Tuesday interview in southern California and before the week was over, he was the new TRD Group Vice President and General Manager. Two seasons of Toyota Indy car struggles didn't deter White from the daunting challenge."TRD was an engine company and that was my background for almost 30 years," remembers White. “Besides, I’d focused on the job at hand and had won at each of my career steps. If an opportunity presented itself I was never shy about reaching for the brass ring and pulling myself up a rung on the ladder. I had a background in engine design, development and production and had extensive experience managing a wide array of championship caliber racing teams, so I felt I had a pretty good idea how to get Toyota back to the success they had enjoyed in sports car racing. I honestly didn't see a problem with making it work."We had two issues, - number one, was building a good engine, and number two was developing relationships with experienced, established teams. The engine part was the quickest and easiest part as TRD had tremendous resources both human and technical. Team-wise, we needed to grow from brand new Indy car teams with rookie drivers, to interim teams with owners like John Della Penna and Robby Gordon to help prove the engine worked. From there, Chip Ganassi and Carl Haas saw enough potential to take a chance and things just took off."The Target Chip Ganassi Racing team teamed up with Toyota and TRD in 2000 and after victory slipped through the team's finger tips early in the season, Toyota eventually broke through for its first CART win with Juan Montoya at Milwaukee. That season would result in five victories, with six more in 2001. By 2002, Toyota's TRD-built engines were dominating the series with 10 victories, while powering Cristiano da Matta to the series championship and Toyota securing the manufacturer's crown."Winning our first CART race at Milwaukee was a significant step toward legitimacy for TRD," White says. "It was the first Indy car win for an American-built engine in 20 years and really helped power us forward. You can’t discount how much it meant to win the 2002 manufacturer, team and drivers championships with Newman-Haas. It helped get TRD back to where they were with sports car racing in the early '90s and, doing it with my former team was very special. The TRD I had raced against in IMSA GTO was very accomplished. After that, they advanced to a world-class level in GTP. Unfortunately, they had lost their way a little bit in Indy car racing. Getting the company back to that former level was what I aspired to when I took the job."Unfortunately, the cost of competing in CART was very expensive and the split in open-wheel racing had cost Toyota an opportunity to win the Indianapolis 500 - the very reason the company had entered open-wheel racing. White and then TRD president Jim Aust encouraged the company to look at the Indy Racing League (IRL), which was less expensive and provided the additional exposure from competing in the Indianapolis 500. "The IRL made a lot of sense for us at the time. The competition was terrific that first year and we were able to win the Indianapolis 500 and the IRL Driver’s and Manufacturer’s Championships in our very first season," recalls White. "Frankly, if they had more rules stability, we might have stayed there for a long time. But the engine formula was changed after one season and in the long-term; we just couldn't justify the cost involved for the exposure we were receiving.”Another racing alternative had started to arise three years into White's tenure at TRD, though."About 3 years after I started at TRD, we started to look over the fence at NASCAR. First in Goody's Dash in 2000, and then in 1992, we received permission to look more seriously at trying to eventually make it to the Cup Series. We knew that ultimately it was the only way TRD could provide a solid return on investment to the company."In August 2002, White had a meeting with NASCAR's George Pyne and the discussions to begin Toyota's participation in NASCAR began. "We had just watched Dodge come back in the sport with Daimler and design an engine from scratch and go NASCAR racing. We spent 6 months looking into it along with NASCAR. Both NASCAR and Toyota did surveys to see how we'd be received by NASCAR fans, as well as Toyota associates and customers, and they came back favorable. Finally, we went into a December 2002 meeting where after some discussion, Bill France Jr. told us we were welcome to come and race."Since that time, Toyota has taken a steady, managed approach to NASCAR racing - first trucks, then starter teams and finally top-level Sprint Cup teams last season, much the same approach the manufacturer took in Indy car competition. The consistent approach has proven to be a winner in both of the highest forms of racing in America. While winning is always important, it’s just one part of the equation for White."Winning in open wheel was great and now winning in NASCAR has been tremendous, but to be honest, winning is what we do. I've always been with teams and programs that have won races. I expect to win. The thing I'm most proud of is how we’ve been able to grow a new breed of racing competitor. Now TRD is a culture of people that work hard, race hard and expect to have success, but also have learned to manage the business of racing at a world class level. I'm most proud to come as a racer and be able to say ‘this is where we were 12 years ago, can you believe this is where we are today?’ That I've had anything to do with that is pretty special.” Average Rating: 0 Rate This: 1 2 3 4 5 &siteid=DMG_rss_201202_RLA_explan_toyrac_lee_white _just_a_racer
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