CONCORD, N.C. – With more than 600 team members in the organization, there are stories all across the Hendrick Motorsports campus.
With that in mind, we’re taking the chance to give fans a glimpse at all of the many sides of Hendrick Motorsports.
Below, you’ll meet Ron Malec, who has taken on a new role this year after 17 seasons as a car chief for the No. 48 team.
How did you get started at Hendrick Motorsports?
“I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Jimmie Johnson basically his whole racing career. We started a long time ago, over 20 years ago. I’ve moved along with him through the different ranks of racing and I started at Hendrick Motorsports in 2001 when Jimmie came here to race full-time, and I’ve worked here ever since. It’s been a great, great place to work and a great career, for sure.”
Did Jimmie ask you to follow him here at the beginning?
“He did definitely help get me in the door, which I’m very thankful for. I think he’s taken good care of me throughout my whole career and made sure that I had a place to work like this. It was great. He brought me here and I was very grateful when he did that, and I was grateful they accepted me here and took me on and then I started my long voyage.”
You’ve been here for nearly two decades, what is it that has kept you at Hendrick Motorsports?
“It’s just an incredible place to work. Rick (Hendrick) is a great owner, boss, friend and just the entire unity of our entire community, as I would call it, here at Hendrick Motorsports is great. Everybody’s got each other’s back. We all help each other. All the departments here and all four teams work really well together. It’s more of a family than just a race team. It’s nice, you come here every day wanting to work and try to work for the end goal, which is good performances on the racetrack.”
After 17 years as a car chief, is a new role a whole new set of challenges?
“It really is. It’s working with so many more people than I’m used to. I’m used to working with 10 guys, not 50. A whole organization, you have to work with everyone that works here. When you’re on a specialized team, it seems like you’re more just working with your core group during the week. Now, you’re interacting with a lot more people, dealing with more problems.
“It’s basically assembly shop foreman. I make sure and oversee the assembly of all four teams’ cars and make sure they’re prepared as well as possible for the week’s races coming up. It is a new challenge for me, which is fun and exciting because after doing the same job for so long, it’s not monotonous, there were new challenges every week on the track, but in the shop, there’s always a lot of new challenges. It’s opened my eyes to a lot of new things that maybe I’ve never realized throughout my whole time working here is that there’s a lot more that goes into getting these cars ready then a lot of people understand.
“I’m trying to do my best at making sure that I keep people more informed of things and making sure that all that stuff I’ve learned from being the other guy to help on that. I do enjoy my new position and hopefully everybody else is enjoying it too.”
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
“I have restored a couple cars, built a couple cars and I also race cars myself in my free time. I hadn’t missed a weekend of racing at all, ever, in my whole career until last year. I took a weekend off to go race my own road race car, which I enjoy doing now. It’s something that I’ve looked forward to, I’ve been working toward this, having more free time. The restoration of my old cars I’ve done in my free time prior to this, which took up a lot of it.
“It kept me focused and directed when I was outside of work, which was a good thing. It’s just something I really enjoy. I don’t drive them that often, but I enjoy building them and I do enjoy racing my car now when I have an opportunity.”
Is restoring the cars similar to what you do at work?
“It is. One thing about the restoration of a car, especially when I’m doing it myself, there’s a lot of self-satisfaction in it. When we are at the racetrack and what you do here in the shop, there’s a lot of self-satisfaction, seeing the cars perform well on the weekends. It goes hand-in-hand. I feel it’s important to me that I keep myself directed and focused. You learn stuff branching out doing things a little bit different.
“Restoring a car, you may learn stuff about something that even applies here. It keeps your mind fresh on working on electrical systems things like that, stuff that you don’t always don’t get to work on here because we have such specialized people here at Hendrick Motorsports doing different departments. I think it keeps me well-rounded on all facets of mechanics and everything else, which is good for me and it helps me teach others at the shop when they start or when they’re learning new positions.”
You go from working on cars at work to working on cars at home?
“Honestly, that’s my release. It’s like somebody’s golf game. That’s what I do to have my release and my stress relief. It does cause me stress at times, but so does golf. It’s just a way for me to take what I have, learn it through motor sports and apply it to other things.
“The end result, when you build a car yourself and actually drive it and you see the end results and you’re able to display it at car shows, things like that, it’s a very good feeling, a great sense of accomplishment. It makes you feel a little bit better about yourself, like, ‘I did something. I built this car from the ground up.’ It’s a good feeling.”
Are you building the cars that you’re racing, as well?
“Yeah, I do. I’m currently rebuilding the car that I race from the ground up because I wanted to make how I wanted it. I bought it together and I wasn’t completely happy with it, so I rebuilt the whole car from the ground up to make it more of how I want it. You never can stop improving a race car, that’s for sure.”
In your time as the No. 48 team car chief, you won seven championships. What does that mean to you?
“After your successes in this sport, it’s hard to always have time to reflect on anything like that. Some of the accomplishments I’ve had have given me opportunities to reflect on it, for sure. Usually, my family and friends are ones that help me remember that I have actually done something in this sport.
“While you’re doing it, you definitely don’t think about it because every week’s a new challenge. It seems like we’re starting from ground zero and working our way up every week and every year. There will be a time, definitely, where I hope it reflects and all soaks in. It definitely is quite an accomplishment to be part of such a great team and such a great organization for so long and be able to accomplish so much that we did.”
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