Instead of always talking about what I do, I thought you would like to hear more about my team. Last year, I did a profile on each of the eight members on KB Racing Top Fuel team and I thought I would do something similar to that this year. The team consists of Jim Oberhofer, Troy Fasching, Jason Davis, Scott Finnis, Chris Glass, James Holifield, Mike LaJoice, and Mac Savage.

I’m sure you know that Jim Oberhofer is our crew chief. More commonly known as Jim O, he has now been with Kalitta Motorsports for 19 years and is now beginning his second year with KB Racing. The other day, when I went to ask him stuff for this blog, he was working on the injector for the dragster. He said this year we’re going to try a new style injector and he was “making everything fit.” Last winter, the injectors consumed a lot of his time so our team jokingly gave him a hard time about it. This year, he said he stayed at the shop until 11 p.m. to get it done so it didn’t end up taking day after day like last year. Throughout the season, when we were back at the shop, he spent day after day working on fuel pumps for the three dragsters and the Funny Car. He says working on those can be tedious. While he prefers to be wrenching on the racecar or racecar parts all the time, he is the general manager of Kalitta Motorsports and has to tend to some of those duties during the day. He usually spends a couple of hours a day at his desk, taking care of other business involved with managing the four race teams. He spends a lot of time on the phone talking with sponsors, potential new hires, and variety of things.

When he has time away from the shop and the racecar, which isn’t very often, Jim O likes to be at home, relaxing with his wife, Tammy, and his 11-year-old daughter, Ashley. He watches football and wrestling on his prized big screen HD-TV. Recently, he and Ashley have become fans of Rachel Ray and some of the other cooking shows. Jim O says he and Ashley used to go shopping together but since she’s gotten older, their shopping trips have become more difficult than tuning the racecar.

Helping him tune the race car is his assistant crew chief, Troy Fasching. Troy is in his fifth year at Kalitta Motorsports. I noticed that he is always at the shop when I arrive and still there when I leave. He said he usually comes in about 7:30 a.m. and rarely leaves before 7 or 8 p.m., especially this time of year. Troy oversees everything on our team and keeps everyone in line so to speak. He said he and Jim O think alike so they work well together.

I learned early on how tidy Troy keeps everything. I bet our pit area is the cleanest one at the race track. The working area at the shop is spic and span as well. You could eat off the floors. Troy prefers everything to be this way because he knows Jim O wants it to be that way; he knows it’s important for our image at the race track, and he was raised that way. Troy says his Mom always kept his room and everything very tidy so he got used to things being very clean and organized.

Before we leave for testing and stay out West for four weeks, Troy will spend a weekend at home in Howard Lake, Minn., with his wife, Veronica, and son, Wyatt. Monday is Wyatt’s third birthday so I’m glad Troy will be there to celebrate it this year. I’m pretty sure he didn’t get to last year because we had so much to do. He was home for Christmas break, but being the dedicated team member that he is, had to spend some time at Elite Trailers, overseeing the remodeling of the Kalitta support trailer.

Needless to say, both Jim O and Troy are very dedicated to the team. They surround themselves with similar type people and tomorrow, I’ll talk about the other members of our KB team.