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Brannon Simpson, president of the PHCC Motorsports Association, stands with his dirt super late model car inside PHCC’s motorsports building. Simpson moved to the area from Chesapeake to enroll in PHCC’s motorsports program. (Bulletin photo) |
Friday, March 30, 2007
By AMANDA BUCK - Bulletin Staff Writer
The days leading up to race weekend are always busy ones in Martinsville. For the past two years, they’ve been particularly hectic for Brannon Simpson, president of the student Motorsports Association at Patrick Henry Community College.
After weeks of preparation, he and other members of the group spent Thursday offering behind-the-scenes tours of the Martinsville Speedway, Arrington Manufacturing and PHCC’s Virginia Motorsports Technology Center.
As he described the area’s racing tradition, Simpson was happy to plug the school’s motorsports program. Since the first time he visited PHCC two years ago, promoting the program has become a habit for the Chesapeake native.
“I kind of became (the program’s) poster child,” after becoming president of the association as a freshman, Simpson said. “Most of the time when they needed somebody to speak on behalf of the program, it was me.”
It’s a role that comes naturally. Simpson, who has “been around hot rods and race cars since I was old enough to lift a wrench,” started racing at 10. By the time he was 13, he was driving stock cars on dirt tracks in the Hampton Roads area.
When he began looking into colleges as a high school senior, Simpson and his father, John Simpson, came across PHCC’s Web site. One visit to the school made the college decision an easy one.
“We looked at a lot of different schools,” Simpson recalled. “Then we came out here and really once we came out here, we were hooked.”
Touring PHCC’s motorsports facility and learning about the program convinced Simpson and his dad — both of whom know their way around an engine and behind the wheel of a racecar — that PHCC was the right place for Brannon.
Now 20 and just six weeks shy of an associate degree in applied science, Simpson is one of a growing number of students who come to PHCC to study motorsports. The program’s enrollment has tripled during the past three years, said Denver Smith, a fabrication technician who teaches classes in sheet metal.
“When I first came here it was just a small shop, a few tools and equipment, probably three to five students in each class,” Smith said. Three and a half years later, “the shop is four times as big, all the stuff is much nicer to work with, we have new tools and equipment, and the classes have tripled to 15 to 20 in each class.”
Including about 40 area high school students who take classes through dual enrollment, the PHCC automotive program has 100-110 students, he said. They can earn certificates or associate degrees in automotive or motorsports technology.
Much of the growth in motorsports is being fueled by students who, like Simpson, come from outside PHCC’s service region. About half the current students are from areas more than two hours from Martinsville, Smith said.
In addition to Virginia cities such as Harrisonburg and Chesapeake, students come from North Carolina, Pennsylvania — even Boston. Most learn about the program online or through a television program that has aired on the Speed Channel, Smith said.
Many who have visited the program’s Web site know Simpson, whether they realize it or not. Since he enrolled in the fall of 2005, he has been featured in ads, on billboards and as a guide on the Web site’s virtual tour.
Next month, he will begin his second season as a dirt super late model driver. Although he loves driving, Simpson’s dream is to own a Nextel Cup team. He will continue preparing for that goal this fall when he enrolls in the business program at Old Dominion University.
Meanwhile, he is encouraging others in the 30-member student association to take on leadership roles. He even recruited one of them: freshman Randy Sample, 18, who grew up with Simpson in Chesapeake.
After hearing about the program through Simpson, Sample, too, was hooked.
“I decided that instead of going to a four-year college ... I would come here and do what I really want to do,” Sample said.
“I’m definitely glad I chose to do what I did,” he added. “I can’t wait to do it (professionally).”
If the past is any indication, the pair’s odds of living their dreams are good. Students coming out of the program often find jobs with machine shops or on pit crews, Smith said.
“A lot of the students that come here want a job in racing,” he said. “Some happen to take the other road and go toward the machining, welding side, but 80 percent want to be on a racing pit crew, be in a shop on a team or be on the management side.”
PHCC grads have taken jobs with Craftsman Truck teams, in the Busch series and even in Nextel Cup racing, Smith said.
Those kinds of opportunities, combined with the faculty and students in the program, have convinced Simpson that he made the right choice when he enrolled at PHCC.
“It’s been an unbelievable two years,” he said. “I definitely wouldn’t trade it for any other school or any big university.”
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