By Ryan Young
The Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Gary Lee has a job that might make fans of Dale Earnhardt Jr. envious or followers of Jimmie Johnson jealous — to name a few.
Lee watches races from inside his truck a few car lengths from turn four. He not only possesses a close proximity to the action but the ever present possibility he could be called to drive onto the track after a wreck.
Funny thing is, when Lee started in his role as fire chief and head of emergency services at Kansas Speedway six years ago, he only vaguely knew of the Earnhardts and wouldn’t have recognized Jimmie Johnson from Junior Johnson.
“I had seen it on TV now and again. It was no big deal,” Lee says. “But when you come out here and you observe this, these fans, and you see the cars, it’s like, ‘Wow.’ Then you just kind of get hooked.”
Consider Lee, a 43-year-old battalion chief for the Lenexa Fire Department, hooked. He found an additional career when Kansas Speedway opened in 2001, and now he oversees a race-day staff of 150 personnel.
He and his crew have earned enough of a reputation that NASCAR is bringing one of its four national track services training sessions to Kansas Speedway in late October. Lee will facilitate the classes and serve as one of the instructors, teaching others how to train wreckers, cleanup crews and the process of putting out pit road and track fires.
“That says we’re doing something right in the racing world — and we’re the youngest track,” Lee says. “That’s a real compliment for us.”
He vividly recalls the first NASCAR race he worked at Kansas Speedway. Still new to the sport, he had gone to a race at Darlington two weeks earlier to get a feel for the scene. He asked the emergency personnel how often they had to cut somebody out of a car and was told it hadn’t happened there in 12 years.
Sure enough, it happened that race while he was there — and then again two weeks later in Kansas.
The call — “99" — came midway through that first race at Kansas Speedway. That meant send the doctor. Dale Jarrett had crashed.
“When the doc gets sent, I get sent also,” Lee says.
They had nearly finished cutting open the car when Jarrett came to and climbed out on his own.
“You’re just busy doing your business,” Lee says. “Then right when you’re done, you realize you just had 100,000 people here watching what you’re doing and millions on TV watching what you’re doing. And you go, ‘Wow!’ ”
He’s been doing it ever since. Now, when he watches races, he always pays attention to Jarrett — who became his favorite driver. And he also pays attention to the emergency personnel.
“We call each other, ‘Hey, saw you guys on TV. That was a hell of a wreck, good job,’ ” Lee says. “Hopefully, we’ll do a good job on something today, and I’ll get a couple of pages or phone calls.”
Despite the multiple crashes and cautions Sunday, Lee didn’t have cause to venture onto the track. His biggest task was calling in extra fuel for the jet driers during the extended rain delays.
But there will be other races, which Lee looks forward to with a changed perspective on the sport.
In addition to growing into his official role at the track — where he works 15-20 hours a week and considerably more on race weeks — Lee has grown into quite the fan over the past six years.
“There goes Rusty Wallace,” he says from the front seat of his truck before the race Sunday, as Wallace drives by in a golf cart. “But I would have never known that before.”
He knows now. His off Sundays are spent watching the race on television at home.
Or ...
“If I’m at the fire station, everybody kind of knows it’s time to kick on the NASCAR,” Lee says. “Football’s coming second.”
Copyright 2007 The Kansas City Star
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News