Denny Hamlin crew chief Chris Gabehart describes his rise from racing driver to NASCAR, thanks to Kyle Busch

Chris Gabehart has had great success as crew chief for Denny Hamlin‘s number 11 car in the last five years. Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour Podcast Gabehart spoke with Kevin Harvick about his path to NASCAR after his career as a racing driver.

Gabehart revealed that he is a “third generation racer on one hand” and his grandfather competed in NASCAR races. He grew up just minutes from the Louisville Motor Speedway and started competing in go-kart races when he was 10 years old. Gabehart revealed that he competed in go-kart races for 10 years before competing in street midget racing.

At the time, Gabehart was attending Purdue University with the “intention of strengthening my racing experience.” Gabehart added, “I knew what I wanted to do, I wanted to race, whether it was as a driver or as a staff member. The hope was to push them.”

Gabehart began racing asphalt late models throughout the Midwest while in college. He then realized he needed to start making money and driving might not be the way to go, which led him to move to the “entrepreneurial side” of racing. He said winning a championship in 2007 helped him realize he needed to quit racing full-time and move to the entrepreneurial side of the sport.

How Kyle Busch helped Chris Gabehart become a top crew chief

But how did Gabehart get into NASCAR? “It was the late model racing,” he said. “Tom Bush ran Kyle Busch‘s late-model program across the country. Kyle drove a little bit. They had some other regular drivers driving, too. But Tom noticed the little team that could ride along with our 28-foot trailer. There’s this guy over at the tire store who fixes all his tires. There’s this guy who jumps out of the car and changes all his shocks and springs or gets on the trailer and rebuilds a shock and gets back out and then he can actually get in the car and drive pretty fast, too.

“…I was kind of transitioning from driving to working. In 2009, I became a crew chief for a team in Atlanta for a year. At the time, I still owned my own car and raced it when I could. But looking back, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was building a relationship with Tom and Tom had shown interest in me.”

Gabehart said he was then asked to be a crew chief for their late model team at KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports), which helped him get to the position he is today. “I’m so grateful to this day for everything Kyle Busch and Tom did for me during those years because it worked out exactly how I hoped it would,” Gabehart said.

“They were interested in my skills and thought a lot of my work ethic, I guess, or they just wanted to get me out of there, one of the two. David Rogers at Joe Gibbs Racing was looking for an engineer in early 2012 and I became the candidate. That’s how I came to JGR and the rest is history.”