Home Depot Hot Spot:
Interview with Jason Shapiro
Jason Shapiro has been with The Home Depot Racing since there has been a Home Depot Racing team, one of three members of the original 1999 crew still wearing orange and white.
Much has changed for the 38-year-old Shapiro since the Home Depot Racing Team first took to the track in 1999, most of it on the far side of exceptional. A lot of that success can be traced from crew chief Greg Zipadelli, the only crew chief the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota has ever known, through Shapiro, who is Zipadelli's chief lieutenant and right-hand man.
Shapiro, like Zipadelli a native of Connecticut, is the car chief for the team. That's a big job, because it is Shapiro's task to take Zipadelli's instructions and relate them to the mechanics and other crew members at the shop, during practice and qualifying and on into the race.
"The car chief is the go-between, between the crew chief and the crew," Shapiro explained. "I work on the car with the other mechanics. I have to implement all the changes that the crew chief and engineer (Adam Stevens) come up with in between practices and before we get to the track, and also between practice and when we go into a race. It's a lot of work to get the car ready for inspection.
"My direct boss is Greg Zipadelli, and when he says we have to do this, I'm the guy that brings it to the crew that works on the car and says, 'OK, we've got to do this and this and we have to have it finished by this time.' That's how our system works."
Working for Zipadelli is nothing new for Shapiro. They both came to NASCAR Sprint Cup racing from what was known then as the NASCAR Busch North Series (today, it's the Camping World East Series).
"Greg and I were crew chiefs in the North Series at the same time, along with Frankie Stoddard, and I think there were a couple of years in that series where all three of us won a race," Shapiro remembered.
From his native Essex, Conn. Shapiro got started in the sport as a lot of young men do: he helped a racer at the track, learned and advanced.
"I did it the old-fashioned way," he said. "I went to a local track and I was helping a guy and I worked my way up. My stepping stone to the Sprint Cup Series was the Busch North Series. I worked my way to crew chief (for driver Glenn Sullivan), and we won a race and a couple of poles and had some success.
"I worked for a decent team and I wasn't really making a good living. Talking around, if you wanted to make a decent living in motorsports, you had to move to Charlotte. That's what I did. I was fortunate to get on with Brett Bodine, and worked there for a couple of years and then went with Kenny Wallace at the old Square D Ford for a year. Fortunately, I've been able to spend the majority of my career here at Joe Gibbs Racing with the Home Depot team."
When he began his career in 1999 with Zipadelli and the rest of the team, Shapiro was a mechanic responsible for a specific area of the car, in this case the front end. At the end of the 2005 season, which culminated in the second series title for Home Depot, Shapiro was elevated to car chief when Scott Diehl retired to start his own business.
Promotion from within has always been a hallmark of Joe Gibbs Racing, and Shapiro credits the system in place with the success Big Orange has been able to generate in a day and age of increasing pressure on resources.
"The schedule gets tougher every year with testing demands, sponsor demands, the driver is away from the team a lot, so we have had to learn to think and work more efficiently, and we've been able to accomplish a lot more that way," he said. "Really, our time has become at a premium. This year of course, they banned testing while the economy recovers, but the amount of hours that you have to put in now to be competitive is a lot more now than it was when I first got in the sport."
Shapiro, Zipadelli and tire specialist Jerold Shires are the only original team members left at Home Depot Racing.
"We've gone around the horn on the other spots, and I think we three are the only originals still there," Shapiro mused. "Scooter (transporter driver and mechanic Scott Crowell) has been with us a long time, too.
"I have friends all over the industry, but when you work with someone that closely, they become more like brothers. Some days you really hate them and some days you really love them. You would probably do anything for them away from the track, and that's the way I am with most of the guys on the team. Time helps you develop good relationships with these guys.
"One thing we do have here at Joe Gibbs Racing is good personnel."
Entering his 11th season as a primary cog in the machine that is the Home Depot Racing Team, Shapiro knew from the start that Home Depot was a special kind of sponsor.
"As I came in and worked with the team for a long time, I knew right away that Home Depot was a different sponsor than I had worked with in the past," he said. "I noticed right away their professionalism and how well they market.
"If they have a $10 million budget for racing, they spent another $10 million on marketing, and in return, they got $30 million in advertising. I always thought that was smart. I knew they were a clever sponsor to begin with, and some of the things they've done for us over the years, it's really made it a more a family oriented deal. They've always been a part of our family, rather than just our sponsor, and that's from top to bottom.
"They really have taken care of us. I could sit here and gloat for a long time, but the proof is in the pudding. They really care about their Associates and the people they sponsor and they do a good job at all the other stuff. You can't just walk up with a bunch of money and say, 'here, put our stickers on.' It's a whole program and it's been far and beyond the best sponsor I've ever worked with."
This year, Shapiro is breaking in a new driver. Tony Stewart was the only Home Depot driver for the first 10 years of the team's existence. Young Joey Logano pushes the button on the team's Toyota Camry these days.
It's been a learning process all around, not just for the 18-year-old behind the wheel, Shapiro said.
"His enthusiasm is far beyond any driver I've ever worked with, and I'm not just saying that because he's 18 years old," he said of his new driver. "He truly loves what he does. He gets very upset when he's not successful, and that's something you can't put in somebody. That's going to carry him a long way in this sport. We have a lot of great races to come with him.
"On the flip side, certainly there's the lack of experience. There're a lot of times when we get frustrated because the things we've taken for granted for the last 10 years, we have to re-teach. The thing that makes you happy at the end of the day is, once you show him something once, he typically has it down, and/or comes back and adds something to it.
"He's certainly the guy you want to have in a race car, especially at 18 years old. What a future he has ahead of him in this sport."
