Carolina Mill Town is 'Hollywood of NASCAR'
M O O R E S V I L L E, N. C., May 10, 2002 -- Walk into one of the dozens of glittering chrome and steel buildings around Mooresville, N.C., and you're likely to hear something rather unusual in such corporate-like settings: the whine of drills, welders, sanders and grinders.
Continue down a carpeted corridor, through a set of gleaming double doors — and you find the source of the noise: NASCAR central.
Here is where they build the stockcars of NASCAR — top-of-the-line, high-octane, NASCAR-winning little vehicles painted with some of the biggest money-making numbers in the sport. And the cars aren't just built here; they're designed, re-designed and — after each NASCAR race — rebuilt and repaired here.
'It All Starts From Right Here'
There are more than 50 race teams headquartered in Mooresville and almost everyone of them maintains their cars in multi-million dollar, sprawling high-tech complexes so fancy locals call one of them the "Garage Majal."
A stroll into top racer Rusty Wallace's shop reveals something more like an airplane hangar than a garage: cavernous, bustling and clean as a whistle. Half a dozen cars are undergoing repair and renovation, but not a drop of oil or spilled paint is in sight. On the leading edge of one car, evidence of an unfortunate tangle in last week's race is being erased by a mini-hive of crew team members.
Wallace is proud of the place. He's an adherent to the philosophy of keeping standards high in this intensely competitive, mechanically complicated sport.
Each day, engineers hone frame and engine bits and parts to exact specifications, sometimes secret specifications. They build the cars starting just with long rows of pipe, welded to unrelenting standards set by NASCAR and the drivers themselves.
There's no room for error, mess or disorder here. Wallace points out that drivers' lives can depend on the work done in these shops: "All the little shops right here, you know, on Thursday afternoon or morning, when all these trucks set out across the United States to go to the race, it all starts from right here."
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