Crew chief Blickensderfer far from overnight success

LAS VEGAS -- It started, simply enough, with his grandfather's automotive repair shop. That was when he first dirtied his hands with grease and oil, first learned the language of engines and chassis, first became smitten with the secrets it took to make cars run well and go fast. He never quite shook it, not through all those years of playing football in high school, not while he was wrestling in college, not when he had door after door slammed on him and had to mow grass at a golf course to pay the rent. The desire was always there, simmering but persistent, and in time it propelled Drew Blickensderfer to Victory Lane at the Daytona 500.

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He's come out of nowhere, it seems, this former Nationwide Series crew chief who has guided Matt Kenseth to wins in the first two events of this Sprint Cup season. But in reality, the native of Decatur, Ill., has been working toward this point for a very long time. Before he was 10 he was tinkering in his late grandfather's garage. In high school he often sneaked off to drag strips or dirt tracks. After graduation he bought a modified car and raced it in the summertime. And when concussions ended an All-American wrestling career at the University of Indiana, he took the leap -- with $300 to his name, he loaded everything into a U-Haul and moved to Charlotte, N.C., where he began what seemed the impossible task of searching for a job in NASCAR.

"Two years ago, a friend of our family's asked me how I got into this deal, and I kind of told the story. It was the first time I'd told it in a long time, and I thought, I'm a pretty lucky guy, you know?" Blickensderfer said at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "I had $300 bucks in my account. I never asked my parents for money when I was down here. They would have given it to me, I just never did. After two weeks I thought, if I don't find a job, I've got to pay rent again, what am I going to do? Lucky thing is, I was mowing grass at a country club, and could get off at 2 [p.m.] when I was done with that, shower and go knock on doors." (Continued)