He’s the driving force behind the evolution of NASCAR
Oshawa native turns childhood hobby into role of improving circuit’s cars
Little did Gene Stefanyshyn know that his teenage years spent rebuilding wrecked cars around an Oshawa junkyard would be the launching pad that would lead him to a role rebuilding the way NASCAR races around the track.
Likewise, were it not for an insightful high school shop teacher, Stefanyshyn might never have arrived at his current destination as NASCAR’s vice-president of innovation and racing development. He’s now playing a leading part in redesigning the race cars to limit downforce and increase the driver’s ability to race each other in tight quarters, an effort that will again be on display during Sunday’s Sprint Cup Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
You might think that NASCAR, due to its deep-south roots, is a traditional, stuck in the mud, conservative organization that fears change. If you think that, you’d be dead wrong.
“We’ve made some pretty good progress in the last three or four years to be open-minded and not be timid about trying some things,” said Stefanyshyn, who joined NASCAR from General Motors in 2013. “It’s kind of the way of the world these days. You’ve got to take a few risks here and there.
“Sometimes things don’t quite work out. In every one of those, there’s learning and advancement that occurs from that. Even if you make a mistake, it’s a learning experience, a learning event.
“If you’re afraid of failure, you’ll never do anything big. If you’re extremely conservative in this fastpaced world, it’s not the attitude you can have anymore.”
The steady elimination of downforce in the Sprint Cup cars from 3,000 pounds in 2014 to 1,500 pounds for the June race at MIS is designed to make them looser on the track and enable more opportunities to pass.
“It’s an area where I would say we’ve been doing a lot of stuff in the technology space,” Stefanyshyn said of the changes. “We try to look at our whole business and say, ‘What can we do to improve the fan experience at the track? What can we do to improve the broadcast? What can we do to improve the product on the track?’
“We have been pretty openminded to try these things on the track but they’re done in a way where we work with our partners.”
Those partners include manufacturers, car builders, team owners, drivers, and tire manufacturers.
“Everybody,” Stefanyshyn said. “We have a pretty good discussion about the plan, what we’re going to do and how we’re going to evaluate it.”
Stefanyshyn’s passion for cars began behind the fences of a car wrecker owned by the father of a close childhood friend in Oshawa.
“I would spend a lot of time there and when the gate would close on a Saturday, we’d be there working on cars, repairing them and driving them,” Stefanyshyn recalled. “I would have been 14, 15 and we’d be driving them around the junkyard, learning how to rebuild engines.
“I rebuilt probably 20, 30 V8 engines in my youth.”
His interest in cars led Stefanyshyn to think he wanted to pursue a career in tool and die making but his shop teacher advised Stefanyshyn to think bigger.
“I loved technical things and I loved math, so it seemed the logical thing to get into engineering,” Stefanyshyn said. “Then I thought, ‘I like cars and I like engineering,’ so I focused on automotive engineering.”
He earned his engineering degree from Kettering University in Flint, Mich. and also garnered an MBA from Western Ontario University’s Ivey Business School in London.
Working at GM for three decades, Stefanyshyn, who was born in Red Lake, Ont., was based in Oshawa, Detroit, Sweden, Germany and Australia, and was the company’s executive director of global product development quality when he opted to join NASCAR.
“I decided it was time to do something different and this opportunity came up,” he explained.
Stefanyshyn wasn’t afraid of change, and neither is NASCAR.
Sometimes things don’t quite work out. In every one of those, there’s learning and advancement that occurs from that.