01/03/2003

WHEELER'S DOWN SOUTH
by J.A. Ackley with Mike Wheeler

Mike Wheeler, affectionately known as Wheels by his friends, has moved up to the big-time in 2003, as Wheeler will be engineer for Joe Gibbs Racing Busch Series teams.

Wheeler earned his experience through many years on the #39 Helman Group Pontiac and then this past year became crew chief for the TS Haulers teams, producing a six-win season.  Wheeler’s season ended at the World Series with a win with Bo Gunning in the SK division and then the call came.

“I thought I was going to have a few weeks off before figuring out what I was going to do next season,” Wheeler commented.

However, a few teams down south were feeling out Wheeler right after the World Series and before Wheeler could get settled down, the following Tuesday he received a call from one of the engineers from Joe Gibbs asking if he would be interested helping out their Busch team with a test down at Homestead.  Tony Stewart and his guys would be there as well preparing for the final race so without much hesitation Wheeler agreed.  The test session was as much of a test of the car as it was a test to see if Wheeler fit with the team.  Things went very well and when Wheeler got back the team said they would offer me a position with the team, which they did a week later.

Wheeler’s current position is engineer for the two Busch teams with drivers Mike Bliss and Coy Gibbs.  Wheeler is the only engineer for these two teams while the Cup teams have 12 engineers amongst them.

“The team including Joe told me that it would be best for my career path if I stayed with the Busch team for a year or two in order to gain valuable experience if I want to be a Cup crew chief someday,” Wheeler commented, “If I was a Cup engineer, I would only be appointed to one task, like wind tunnel, road engineer, test engineer, engine engineer and so on.  By being on the Busch side and being the only one doing this, I have the chance to do all of this while working side by side with the 2002 Winston Cup Champs.”

Currently at Joe Gibbs, they are in the process of building all the cars for 2003.  The team is changing all the cars from Pontiacs to Monte Carlos except for their Speedway cars.  For the Busch series, rules regulate that you must use a 2002 body for Daytona and Talladega, leaving the teams with the Grand Prix.

Mike Wheeler went to test with the #20 Rockwell Automation team and Mike Bliss a few weeks back to Lakeland (FL) Speedway to try a few things.

“While we only got three hours in a two-day test due to rain, everyone was happy with the way it went,” Wheeler stated, “My main project right now is trying to learn from the Cup engineers and applying it to the Busch side. This takes both components of the car as well as chassis setup and parameters, and data acquisition as well.”

In upcoming weeks, Wheeler will be a busy man, as he will attend two wind tunnel dates in the next two weeks, one for the downforce cars and the other for the Daytona cars. After that Wheels will attend a shock rig test and then off to Daytona for a week of testing. Upon returning from Daytona Wheeler is back off to Las Vegas for a two-day test there with both teams. And remember folks this is January alone.

Now as far as the personal level goes, for Wheeler it's been quite a change.

“All I can say is it's just different down here,” Wheeler remarks. “You've heard the stories about people and places and it's pretty much true. It's been a little frustrating at times however things are starting to come together.”

Wheeler currently lives in an apartment that is located in the middle of the three shops with the furthest shop being 15 minutes away.

“The guys at the shop are really nice and good to work with and everyone says that working at JGR is the best,” Wheeler commented, “Both Joe Gibbs and his sons have been really helpful and nice and it's still a little weird walking into the cup shop where you see guys like Joe, Zippy, Fatback and Jimmy Makar in the same place and having meetings with them.”

Wheeler has this past week off as a nice break in the action but the ambitious young gentleman from Long Island, NY is anxiously looking forward to getting 2003 underway.

Sources:  J.A. Ackley/Mike Wheeler/LongIslandJam.com
Posted:  January 3, 2003