After growing up a Mark Martin fan, Alan Gustafson now calls the shots for his childhood hero

By Rea White - Associate Editor

Thursday, June 11, 2009

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It’s funny how life works out sometimes. Alan Gustafson was just a teenager the first time he nabbed Mark Martin’s autograph.

Little did he know that years later, he’d be working with Martin as the driver chased NASCAR Sprint Cup wins.

After years of following the sport and collecting autographs, Gustafson has become one of the top crew chiefs in the Sprint Cup garage. In his fifth season as a crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports, Gustafson is working with Martin and has a driver once more in position to contend for the championship.

It’s quite an evolution for the Ormond Beach, Fla., native. Gustafson can’t even really remember when he first started going to races, when his love for racing was born.

That’s forgivable, considering he was only 3 or 4 years old. In those days he was heading out with his dad for the 24 Hours of Daytona. Gustafson was hooked.

Growing up practically in the shadow of the track, it might seem natural that Gustafson developed an appreciation for the fast cars heading to Daytona International Speedway. Gustafson, now 33, cut his racing teeth working on cars on the Florida short-track circuit, all the while dreaming of a job in a higher-profile series.

When his path to a racing career stalled, he entered Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in pursuit of a mechanical engineering degree. Then he got the chance to work in racing in North Carolina. He took it. In 1997, he began working in the Truck series and a year later was a team engineer in what is now known as the Nationwide Series.

Prior to the 2000 season, Gustafson got one of those calls that everyone in racing hopes for, one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Then he made his move to Hendrick Motorsports.

Initially a shock specialist with the No. 5 team, he moved into the lead engineer role and then, in 2005, became the crew chief for Kyle Busch. They won their first race together that season, then made the Chase For The Sprint Cup the next two seasons. In 2008, he worked as crew chief with Casey Mears before joining Martin this year.

It’s a long way for the starry-eyed kid to come. Now, working for one of the sport’s elite teams, after leading his childhood hero, Martin, to two Sprint Cup victories this year, Gustafson finds Martin views him with mutual admiration.

“Alan Gustafson is absolutely the best,” Martin says. “I may have been his childhood hero. I’m living a second childhood now, and he’s my childhood hero.”

Martin, who now resides in Daytona Beach, had always been the epitome of what Gustafson admired in NASCAR.

“When I first started watching Mark, I just always admired the way he raced,” Gustafson says. “He races really hard, you can see his dedication and focus, but at the same time, he has certain values that he’s not going to sacrifice to win or be successful. To me that’s the hard way.

“I always was drawn to that, admired the way he raced and the respect he got from his competitors and the things that he accomplished.”

Now, it is Gustafson earning that type of praise for his work atop the pit box.

“I would say Alan Gustafson is one of the best out there,” says Chad Knaus, the three-time defending Cup champion crew chief and Gustafson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate.

Even though he enjoyed some success at NASCAR’s top level at an early age, with several years now under his belt, Gustafson has learned there’s no substitute for experience.

“When I was younger I’d always hear the word experience. What is experience … why is it a big deal?” he says. “… Just the little things you learn through failure or mistakes, the little nuances of a race or of running a race team and calling a race … or sometimes, making the right call for your driver’s psyche or your team psyche, is important.

“You just learn; that’s what experience does for you and it’s very valuable. You’ve got to go through it. You can get, I don’t want to say lucky, but things can go your way and you can see young guys come in and have success, and I was one of them that things went my way quickly, but that experience of calling the race and knowing and understanding what’s going to transpire and how to handle it [is important], too.”

That experience has helped make him one of the most respected crew chiefs in the garage, a winner of six races and a man working with a driver in Chase contention this year.

That the driver is Martin only makes things that much sweeter.

“To make it [as a] Sprint Cup crew chief is a huge deal, but to be one at Hendrick Motorsports, I think is even that much bigger,” Gustafson says. “To work for the best team in racing, and then to work with Mark, I don’t know that you could even dream that. That is awful special.”