Where is ... Chad Little?

The first thing Chad Little had to get used to was the hours.

For years, he'd been a driver, either on the Busch or Cup circuits. His schedule was pretty much ... well ... his schedule. Most days, when he wasn't at the track, he could sleep as late as he wanted, and then maybe ease into the day. That's not an option, not on his current gig. No way.

Chad Little

Now that Little is NASCAR's director of racing development for Mexico, he keeps regular office hours in the sanctioning body's research and development center in Concord, N.C.

And, yep, that means Little is there every morning, bright and early.

"As a driver, you have a lot of freedom with your schedule," Little said. "So one of the biggest challenges was just getting used to the regimen of working for a corporation. The structure wasn't a challenge ... it was just getting to work at 8 o'clock every day. But I enjoy it. I've learned a lot.

"It was eye-opening at first ... challenging. I'd always realized I wouldn't race forever, for one thing. Secondly, I always wanted to get involved in the business side of what I was doing. So I saw, as my career wound down, that this was something that I wanted to do. I wasn't ready to just walk away and not work any more at all. This was kinda in the plans."

In his role with NASCAR, Little works hand-in-hand with series and commercial directors in Mexico as a liaison. Help is given on managing the series, when it comes to rules, race procedures, safety and cost, among a good many other things.

NASCAR Mexico helps oversee the annual Busch Series event at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, and also sanctions the NASCAR Mexico Corona Series and the NASCAR Mexico T4 tour.

By all accounts, there's a lot going on south of the border. While Little is an attorney, having passed the bar in both his home state of Washington and his adopted home in North Carolina, he's not doing any legal work with NASCAR Mexico.

If nothing else, NASCAR is in Mexico to provide a sense of order to the country's motorsports community.

"There was a strong following of motorsports in Mexico," Little said. "When NASCAR started looking at growing internationally, they really focused on Mexico and Canada. In Mexico, they had a fragmented market ... different series, not a real, controlling series for the competitors to compete in, not a good set of rules. It'd be good one year and not the next."

In 217 career Cup starts, Little's best finish was a runner-up effort at Texas in 1998. He'd driven for some of the biggest names in the sport, including Jack Roush, Cale Yarborough and Harry Melling. He made his last Cup start in 2002 at Dover, for car owner Bill Baumgardner.

It was hard for Little to step away from the career he'd enjoyed as a competitor.

"The most difficult part for me was just saying when the right time was [to retire as a driver]," Little said. "It was tough because I think I could've continued to run some Busch races or looked into the Truck Series, which I never really explored very much. I chose not to do that. When my Cup career wound down, it was time to move on.

"It was really tough. I talked to my family a lot about it ... my father. He was involved in my career when I moved here. I got a lot of advice from him. I got advice from people at NASCAR. I explored the alternatives, and it just felt like the right thing to do. Racing is beautiful, and the competition is the most fun for a driver. But when your career starts to wind down, you're not as competitive any more. It's not as much fun struggling." (Continued)