‘Mike was our star’: How Rainbow Warriors crew member set standard on pit road
Mike Trower's distinguished 27-year career on pit road is filled with memories, momentos and plenty of victories — along with the respect and admiration of the sport's biggest names.
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00:00 Take me back to dirt track kid from Iowa. How did you get to the Carolinas and eventually with Marcus?
00:06 Well, you know just growing up racing the dirt tracks. My dad was a drove all around Iowa on the dirt tracks and
00:13 That's what I wanted to do. You know wanted to be on a pit crew. Wanted to work on cars
00:17 Then you start going to the racetrack. You started going with Dave Marcus. A real long story short
00:23 I went to a couple races at the end of 85 and I went and met Dave
00:28 Some guy that whoever was catching gas for Dave
00:31 Something happened whatever so I ended up catching gas for Dave then
00:35 Race was over. We're standing in the garage and I said y'all need help next week
00:40 He said yeah, we can use the help
00:42 So from then on I just kept going
00:44 You obviously get pretty good at changing tires because then you get a phone call in the night to from Ray Abraham
00:49 Mike was one of the first people I hired just knew that salt of the earth guy and would do what he said he would
00:56 do and
00:57 one of those guys
00:58 that
00:59 Worked a full-time job regular job and then work just as hard and probably more hours with the part-time job
01:07 Which was a 24 car that was kind of the first real
01:10 organized
01:12 Delegated pit practices. We're gonna have a routine. This is this is how we're gonna practice what we're gonna practice for
01:17 What was that like in the early stages? Oh, it was fun
01:20 gearing up for practice
01:22 We
01:24 Had Andy Papa thought to see you who was the the pit crew captain to put those guys together
01:36 But Mike was our star if Belichick was the coach Brady was the star Mike was our Brady
01:41 He was the guy everybody looked up to you know, mr
01:43 Hendrick used to say look three things you got to do show up show up on time show up with your game face
01:48 Every race we ever ran with Mike Trower. He did all three of those things
01:51 Thanks.
01:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]