Near the start of the pandemic I had the opportunity to have a phone call with NHRA Top Fuel Driver Kyle Wurtzel. Kyle Wurtzel has a super interesting story to how he found himself racing in the NHRA and a day job that you may not believe! During our phone call me a Kyle discussed the racing and business side of the sport such as how much a car/parts costs all the way to the best practices for finding team sponsors. If you are into any type of automotive racing you will love this article! Links to Kyle’s profiles on various platforms will be linked at the end of the article. Comment if you have ever been to an NHRA event and what your favorite part was! Don’t forget to share and comment!

Myself: Questions (Q)

Kyle: Answers (A)

Q: What got you into racing? Was it at a younger age or more recently?

A: I was younger, I mean in high school I was always interested in cars and trucks that sort of stuff. I did not go to school for those types of things, though. I have a degree in finance and economics from the University of Indianapolis.

Q: What was the process like to get a team in the NHRA?

A: Well, it takes a lot of time and money. A big piece of it is just having the desire and passion for the sport. I am by no means a big budget team, but I wouldn’t say I’m the smallest budget team either; I’m somewhere in the middle. It just takes time and patience.

Q: How much does a typical car cost?

A: The biggest problem with the sport is all the “spares” that it takes to run the car. For example, when I show up to a race, I have two spare motors, I have spare sets of heads, I have six extra sets of rods and pistons. I mean it’s all that stuff that really adds up. If you just took the car up to the starting line to make one run, the car by itself (not counting all the spares and other stuff) is going to be around $150,000. To give you an idea of some of the big-ticket items, the rear wing on the car costs $17,000, just the wing. The rear end in the car costs about $15,000, so just with the wing and rear end you have north of $30 000. The expenses add up quickly.

*“Kyle putting that wing and rear end to work”*

Q: Are there any other big expenses most people wouldn’t think of? Crew costs, insurance, travel, anything like that?

A: I don’t carry any insurance on the car. There is no one who would actually insure the car while it’s running. All my crew guys are volunteers. I only race like five or six times a year, so all my guys have normal jobs, and this is just what they do as part of a hobby or for fun. The cost to get the guys there can be expensive, I have to fly them in and get them hotel rooms. That adds up quite a bit. When it comes to the race to give you an idea, one run down the track costs around $5 000. The reason it costs so much is all the things that can only be used a few times like: oil, spark plugs, clutch disc, blower belts, fuel, blower stripping, and bearings. You can only get so many runs on that stuff. For example, a rod costs about $140 each and if I get ten runs on a rod that would be really good but most of the time you only get three or four.

Q: How much horsepower does your car make?

A: For my type of car, they say we produce over 11 000. There isn’t a dyno that we can go run the motor on. What other racers/teams have done is put a sort of a torque sensor in the drive line to come up with a good estimation.

Q: Going back to your crew having different jobs, do you have a different job or is racing your full-time job?

A: No, as my wife puts it, “racing is kind of my professional hobby.” I do financial planning for a living, so I do investment management, insurance management, that’s my career.

Q: Do people ever get shocked when you say I’m both a financial planner and a professional drag car driver?

A: For sure, it’s kind of an oxymoron. It definitely surprises people what my hobby is.

Q: How does an NHRA team make money? Are you making money when you win, off merchandise, sponsorships, etc.?

A: You get paid to win, and you get paid to qualify for the race and that kind of thing. It does not cover the costs of running the car. For someone to make this their career or their livelihood, they can only make a living at it by selling sponsorships and merchandise. I mean that’s really the only two ways to survive. I would then say most of the money is coming from sponsorships, not so much the merchandise.

Q: What is the typical way to find a sponsor?

A: To find a sponsor you are definitely hunting them out. You are going to them trying to find a good fit for the demographics of the sport and their products/services. For the past few years, I have had an excavating company as a sponsor. This year, dealing with the pandemic, it was me, myself, and I. We have had a few sponsors in the past, but this year with Covid and its consequences, everything is a lot tougher, including finding sponsors.

*“An example of what a sponsor looks like on the car”*

Q: Going off what you just said about Covid, how else has it affected you on the racing side or business side?

A: On the racing side, like everything in the world, racing shut down but came back in July. But it drastically reduced the number of races in the year and geographically they kind of had to pivot because certain states weren’t allowing it to happen, but certain states would, so that was a challenge. Then I know teams have been impacted from a sponsorship standpoint because the companies that were sponsoring them have been negatively impacted from the pandemic. Like for everybody, it’s just a challenging period of time.

Q: How does a typical race work for you now?

A: You register with NHRA the Monday before the race, so you will be able to go to it. For me personally, preparations start weeks before the race. I would say it takes about fourteen working days just to get ready for a race as far as getting parts organized and inventoried and that kind of stuff. Pre-Covid you would do two qualifying runs on Friday and two qualifying runs on Saturday; the quickest sixteen cars raced on Sunday. One of the things that changed when Covid came along, was the NHRA changed it to two qualifying runs on Saturday and then the quickest sixteen raced on Sunday.

Q: When you are at a race, do you have rituals you do every race such as a certain song or get some time by yourself?

A: I don’t really do anything like that, I know some people do. I don’t have a specific song or anything like that. I typically just sit in the tow vehicle and chill out a little bit. Usually, when we race, it is extremely hot out, so I just sit in the air-conditioned tow vehicle and try and stay as cool as possible before its time to strap into my car.

Q: What was the feeling like when you went 313mph?

A: It definitely is an adrenaline rush! I mean that’s the only way to describe why I would keep doing this. But it’s kind of like when you think about business planning and setting goals: you always have to look ahead and look to the future. You feel the deceleration a lot more then acceleration. When the parachutes deploy you get slammed back.

Q: Do you have any scary experiences or a dangerous experience?

A: I mean we have had plenty of engine failures just from things that broke and shouldn’t have, which created big balls of fire. I mean I wouldn’t say it is necessarily scary, it’s all behind me I don’t even know how bad it is until I see videos or pictures of it. As far as driving the car, I haven’t really had any scary experiences. I mean for the most part we are in charge of that. So, what I mean by that is, it is my responsibility to get off the gas or stay on the gas to prevent a crash or get out of a crash.

Q: When do you find yourself more stressed: when you are in the car about to do a run or when you are focusing more on the business side?

A: It definitely is a bit of both. When you’re getting the car ready, putting the motor together before a run you are definitely stressed out, hoping everyone does their job right and all the parts work the way that they are supposed to. But at the same time, it is a different type of stress trying to find money and sponsorships. I enjoy that because it is more challenging, and it is like you’re out hunting. It’s a different type of stress but getting ready to drive the car is more stressful then trying to find the money.

Q: Do you do any racing outside of the NHRA for any various reasons?

A: Yes, Pre-Covid we would do what’s called Match Races. These are races where event organizers and tracks will hire us to come in and make some runs. They would pay us to make three runs over the weekend. Regardless of whether we win or lose, we get paid to run up and down the racetrack just putting on a show.

Q: Do you look up to anyone as a racer or on the business side?

A: Not really. I mean I think of an owner like John Force Racing and all of the hard work that they have put in to build the enterprise that they have, but today he is so far away from where I am that it’s hard to compare. I enjoy the sport and I knew that it was something I wanted to do, so I just worked hard and focused on building a team that could compete.

*“John Force and his daughters Courtney and Brittany. All very accomplished NHRA drivers”*

Q: Going back to your roots, did you always want to be a racer? I ask that because you went to school for finance. When you were in school did you picture yourself become a racer or did you always see it more as a hobby?

A: It was more a hobby that grew into something else. I mean I wasn’t going to college with the idea that I was going to learn about business and become a racer. I was going to college to create a career and a lifestyle. Along the way, racing got involved in my life and I enjoyed it, but I didn’t go to school for it.

Q: Is there anything you want to accomplish on the business side or racing side in the future?

A: Yes, absolutely. As a small independent team, I have built my racing program to a point where we can win races. Two or three years ago I couldn’t say that, but I genuinely believe today we can do that! I would love, and I feel like we have a great opportunity, to win more races. On the business side, I would love to find a marketing partner that fits well with me and my part time schedule. That would allow us to go to three or four more races a year; we could go out there and run nine or ten races a year instead of five or six.

Q: My final question is what advice would you give to someone who wants to get into racing or the business side of racing?

A: As far as getting into racing, if it’s on the mechanical side of crewing, I would tell you to just try and find a local racer and start volunteering to help him. There is always someone who needs help even if its just an extra set of hands or eyes. On the business side of things, just keep learning and educating yourself on what it takes to become a good marketer because that is really what this business is all about: marketing yourself and marketing the NHRA platform and what it can offer.

Follow Kyle Wurtzel On

Kyle’s Team Website: kylewurtzelracing.com

Twitter: kwurtzelracing

Facebook: kylewurtzelracing

If you see any of your photos used in this article please contact me so I can give you proper credit!

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