CCWS hires new Director of Technology

[Ac.]

Scot Elkins joins CC head office as the new technical director. Seems a bit strange to hire someone from the NASCAR ranks.

Story here.

[BootsOntheSide]

Nothing wrong with hiring NASCAR people - look how much success their series has had. When it comes to ensuring that the racing is equal and exciting, NASCAR have got it right, adn being a spec series ChampCar can potentially learn a lot from them.

[Ac.]

True Boots, but the technology in the two series couldn't be more different.

[jjspierx]

I was thinking the same thing.

[macdaddy]

Obviously, the job isn't going to be "contracted out" to its previous staff, as many of us thought it may be. And I'm another who can't seem to make any sense of this decision.

Now... How about "Chief Steward"? Time runneth short...

[Ac.]

More on Elkins:

January 2004.

Barber Dodge Hires Yates Engineer: The Barber Dodge Pro Series has contracted former Robert Yates Racing race engineer and test team manager for the number 88 Ford Taurus, Scot Elkins, to be its race engineer. During the 2004 Champ Car Barber Dodge season, Elkins will oversee data acquisition on the fleet of Reynard-Dodges and will provide data analysis for all series drivers and driver coaches. He's also engineering the remaining BDPS winter test days at Sebring International Raceway in January, February and early March. Prior to his three-year stint at Yates, from 1996 to 2000 Elkins was the NASCAR business unit manager for Pi Research, the UK-based designer and manufacturer of motorsport electronics and software. At one point during that tenure, he doubled Pi's sales in the Winston Cup and Busch arenas. Elkins recently returned to that position with Pi Research (with the additional responsibility of sports car and road racing); he'll be conducting his Barber Dodge duties under the auspices of his own firm, The
Elkins Group.

[Ac.]

Also from this motorsport.com article.

Elkins, 33, has a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering technology from Indiana State University. In addition to a background of race engineering for IRL and Toyota Atlantic teams, Elkins was the Pi Research data acquisition engineer assigned to Barber Dodge between 1997 and 2000.

It seems that Scot has more open wheel experience than was originally released by CCWS, so perhaps he is not such a bad choice after all.

[BootsOntheSide]

I would've thought Director of Technology is more of an overview position anyway, and he's proabbly going to use and rely on information and predications form others within the staff, so any gaps in his knowledge or understanding (and I doubt there really are any) can be filled in by others. Plenty of people have had success in many different businesses, simply through having a good overall understanding of how to achieve success, and knowing when to rely on the advice of others.