CONCORD, N.C. – This year, Hendrick Motorsports partner Hertz is celebrating its everyday heroes – ordinary people doing extraordinary things and going out of their way to provide exceptional service.
At Hendrick Motorsports, there are plenty of everyday heroes as well that help make the organization what it is. With that in mind, the organization is recognizing its own Hertz Heroes at Hendrick Motorsports throughout the season.
The next of those heroes to be honored is H.A. Mergen, an engineer in the organization’s competition systems group.
Mergen has been with the organization for more than a decade. Now working with simulation tools, he originally came on board as a race engineer for the No. 88 team and driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“That’s one of the things that helps me become better at what I’m doing right now,” Mergen explained. “I know how the tool gets used every day. I know the expectations the race engineers have and kind of the pressures that are on the race engineers when people like (No. 24 team crew chief) Chad (Knaus) say, ‘Hey, figure out what springs to put in it.’ So, I know the pressures they’re under so we can make the tool perform under those pressures.”
Knaus sat down with Mergen for an interview on the engineer’s role within Hendrick Motorsports, how he got into this career and how he knows when he and his team have done a good job on a race weekend.
Check out the full interview in the video above.