* * *
On a January weekday, chassis work whirs over a music bed of classic rock from a nearby radio. The Allman Brothers' "Blue Sky" plays while the trucks that will wear Niece's almost sky-blue logo are being built and buffed, with the NASCAR season's official kickoff approaching in Daytona. In the pockets of the shop floor that aren't occupied by trucks in various states of race readiness, the fruits of Facebook Marketplace have their homes. In one corner, a fully functional high school athletics scoreboard has been salvaged, and it's complete with lighted numbers, controls and a working buzzer. In other tucked-away spots, second-hand karts sit idle on tiny tires awaiting their time to go. If the lines in the shop sometimes blur between the work-life split, so does the division between the front offices and the hands-on work bays in the back. On this typical offseason Thursday, Matt Gould is on chassis-building detail, improving his skills on the assembly row and finish fabrication -- "whatever they need me to do," he says. His father's day is also split between meeting a General Motors rep in his office and making seat rails back in the shop's main floor. While there's a threshold between the carpet of the office world and the smooth, hard surface of the shop, that line blurs, too. Donovan Strauss, 20, has all the markings of an up-and-coming racer with CARS Tour experience, but on this offseason Thursday, he's on a ladder, peeling an old vinyl wrap off one of Niece's haulers to get the team ready for Daytona. "I look at people that succeed, they have work ethic," Efaw says. That trait stretches across each of the team's departments. "You get on more common ground when you're in there elbow to elbow, and everybody's pitching in," Phil Gould says. "… I think the younger kids coming in being able to work and help is big, just gaining respect of all the people that work here. These guys, they're our face when they go to the race track, so getting to know them and having a rapport, I think, is important." Even while he's overseeing the dirt oval and making enhancements to the grounds, Efaw is still working. When he's not fielding phone calls from team partners, he's observing. When one driver in Niece's pipeline blends his kart onto the backstretch and then promptly slows with a dry fuel tank, he files it away that a more hands-on approach might be needed to assist his development. Another driver has his go-kart dialed in after an adjustment. Efaw notes that, too. [caption id="attachment_498748" align="alignleft" width="300"]Niece Motorsports’ homegrown dirt track: Where recreation, work culture intersect
Niece Motorsports
SALISBURY, N.C. -- Work-life balance in NASCAR is definitely a thing. The delicate, industry-wide dance to keep career aspirations and personal moments separate affects all comers. Race teams arguably have one of the more rigorous time-management tugs-of-war of them all.
Hours at the track can be long, and the shop-centered preparation to get there is another pressing commitment. It's part of why Niece Motorsports' Cody Efaw encourages his staff to shut it off once the clock strikes closing time.
"I take a lot of pride in not working extra," says Efaw, Niece's team CEO and president. "My motto is '7 to 4, not a minute more.' "
Sometimes, though, shutting off work mode doesn't always mean leaving the workplace. Not long after Niece moved into its current home in 2023, Efaw and Co. had a vision to bring the life part of work-life balance onto the team's 20-acre plot. Think along the lines of installing a ping-pong table in the break room, but on a much larger, more specific scale.
Quitting time at Niece Motorsports often means a late-afternoon migration to a homemade dirt track that's nestled against the woods circling the shop's backyard. The bullring -- which measures a fifth or one-sixth of a mile, depending on whom you ask -- has become an important gathering place for employees of all types as spectators or competitors. Their families often join in on the fellowship.
RELATED: 2026 Truck Series schedule
"As much fun as you can have with 6 1/2 horsepower," one driver notes in the small pit lane as a colleague's go-kart buzzes into the neatly banked turns. The extracurricular oval track is just one of the things Efaw has had a hand in building. There's also the three-team operation that's entering its second decade of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competition, but he's also helped to build a community within the shop's walls.
"I think it's something where we spend more time with our work family than we do our own family. I have for 20-some years," Efaw says from the driver's seat of the team's track-packing Jeep, a racing executive who's right at home in well-worn jeans and scuffed work boots. "So you're around these guys all the time, but you're in the pressure cooker, right? You're at the track, everything's a go, there's a job to do, we've got to go. So you never have a chance to laugh."
[caption id="attachment_498528" align="aligncenter" width="1300"]