Garth Finley is a race engineer for Bill Davis Racing, providing support for the No. 36 Toyota team of Jeremy Mayfield. In general, it has a been a demanding year for engineers in the NASCAR garage, with the transition to the Car of Tomorrow requiring parallel work on two platforms. Finley spoke recently with The Sporting News' Reid Spencer.

1What are the responsibilities of a race engineer?

The race engineer needs to be able to take all the information the other engineers have prepared or studied for the upcoming event and be able to apply that knowledge or information as quickly as possible. Sometimes it's a matter of a minute or two during practice and sometimes it's a matter of talking to them during the evening and thinking about what to do for the next day. During the race, you help the crew chief think about strategy and fuel mileage and discuss changes that need to be made to the race car.

2How many engineers are there on a typical Nextel Cup team?

I go on a per-car basis, and I'd say between seven and 10 on a fully funded team.

3How did you get into NASCAR in the first place?

I actually started in open wheel. I was in graduate school studying composite material. At the time when you could see that IRL and CART were going to split, I happened to know a person within NASCAR who worked with General Motors and I was able to get an interview (with a team). At the time, there weren't many engineers, and teams really didn't have people who knew how to run computers, the shop dynamometers or data acquisition systems.

4What was your first job in NASCAR racing?

With A.G. Dillard, with Ward Burton driving the Hardee's car.

5Has the transition to the Car of Tomorrow doubled your workload?

I wouldn't say "doubled," but it has added to our workload because the two types of cars are very different. The two cars require totally different setups and shock packages.