NASCAR Debut and Widespread Adoption

I was still an engineer out at at Hercules Aerospace. And that company got bought up by ATK which later got bought up by Northrop Grumman. >> So, you Cold War ends, there's a gap between the Berlin Wall and Sterling Marlin at Daytona. >> Yeah, actually the Cold War excuse me, the the Cold uh war ended uh in um I think '91 or right around '90 '91. It was It wasn't an exact hard date. It was more of a kind of a fluid just Russia going down. >> Yeah. >> And and >> the Soviet Union collapsed like December '91 or something like that, right? >> Something like that, yeah. And then not long thereafter in 1993, uh we were going through some pretty severe layoffs at at Hercules. And we went from 6,500 uh people down to less than 2,000. And it was It's kind of heartbreaking that such a wonderful place to work became uh I call it food chain politics. Whoever had the best position and that the best time would keep their job. Layoff after layoff came and finally I just I just went and said, "You know what? Rather than just live with the suspense, the next time this happens, I'll go." And they gave me 6 months severance pay as well. So, I It was a It was a good break. I I I I had a so a good income for a while and uh put this all together. And then uh just out of out of stroke of luck, NASCAR comes along and what a what a sweet deal that was. In December of 1994, I got a call from Larry McClure. You make that work on a Winston Cup car? >> [laughter] >> I says, "Of course." >> I was wondering what that sound was. >> I I opened the door. >> [music] >> That That's what I'm talking about. >> It wants to make noise again. >> You just a few actual systems here that were raced. And then these are um exhibit with from from the SEMA show and the and the PRI show. That's an actual IROC system right there. >> Pull away from the line at the inside of the race track which is led by Kenny Brack with Dale Jarrett right behind Brack in the yellow car. This is It's first time >> Oh, really? >> Mhm. That has 5,500 mi on it. And after that much service as I said, this side of the the bends right here are thin. This developed a crack. Follows that weld that's in the heat-affected zone of that weld right there. >> Ah. >> So, they returned that. I I made every I didn't let my let my employees touch these. I made [clears throat] every one of those for 11 years. >> What are…