When it comes to NASCAR Sprint Cup racing you can’t base your team much further away than from the Charlotte hub than Furniture Row Racing which is based in Denver, Colorado.
Earlier this week the team announced that they named Ryan Coniam as crew chief for Regan Smith. Coniam is originally from a Burlington, a suburb of Toronto. He’s moved from being a sprint car racer to Sprint Cup crew guy.
He comes from solid racing stock, his father is Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Warren Coniam.
After his driving career he switched job and along the way he was hired by Bill Davis Racing to be the engineer for Jacques Villeneuve’s short career in NASCAR.
Even in the brief business connection he had great respect for the Quebec-born Formula One World Champion’s desire to learn another form of racing. “I thought he would do very well, it was hard to tell because he didn’t have a lot of lap I don’t think we had the greatest race cars for him, I thought he was going to be fantastic.”
There just wasn’t enough funding to get Jacques in the equipment to learn the ropes in stock cars.
Most recently Coniam worked with another former road racer, Max Papis, whose team was connected with Michael Waltrip Racing where he worked.
So the question becomes why go with a team based thousands of miles from the hub of NASCAR?
The chance to be a crew chief was just too tempting as he said “the only regrets you have are the chances you don’t take.” Then he added “it’s just a change of scenery.”
He looks at the choice of location as a benefit “everybody here is focused on making the race cars go faster and not their worried about what the guy down the street is doing. We’re focused on our job. Being away from that whole intense scene that is Mooresville helps in some respects.”
As he says all the teams have to fly to the races anyway. Being so far away helps his crew concentrate on the job at hand.
“What really does help is peace of mind the guys walk into work in the morning they’re focused on their job. They’re here just to make the racecars faster that’s been fantastic for us.”
Wouldn’t you like to have his frequent flier miles, if they gave them?
photo:NASCAR
Earlier this week the team announced that they named Ryan Coniam as crew chief for Regan Smith. Coniam is originally from a Burlington, a suburb of Toronto. He’s moved from being a sprint car racer to Sprint Cup crew guy.
He comes from solid racing stock, his father is Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Warren Coniam.
After his driving career he switched job and along the way he was hired by Bill Davis Racing to be the engineer for Jacques Villeneuve’s short career in NASCAR.
Even in the brief business connection he had great respect for the Quebec-born Formula One World Champion’s desire to learn another form of racing. “I thought he would do very well, it was hard to tell because he didn’t have a lot of lap I don’t think we had the greatest race cars for him, I thought he was going to be fantastic.”
There just wasn’t enough funding to get Jacques in the equipment to learn the ropes in stock cars.
Most recently Coniam worked with another former road racer, Max Papis, whose team was connected with Michael Waltrip Racing where he worked.
So the question becomes why go with a team based thousands of miles from the hub of NASCAR?
The chance to be a crew chief was just too tempting as he said “the only regrets you have are the chances you don’t take.” Then he added “it’s just a change of scenery.”
He looks at the choice of location as a benefit “everybody here is focused on making the race cars go faster and not their worried about what the guy down the street is doing. We’re focused on our job. Being away from that whole intense scene that is Mooresville helps in some respects.”
As he says all the teams have to fly to the races anyway. Being so far away helps his crew concentrate on the job at hand.
“What really does help is peace of mind the guys walk into work in the morning they’re focused on their job. They’re here just to make the racecars faster that’s been fantastic for us.”
Wouldn’t you like to have his frequent flier miles, if they gave them?
photo:NASCAR