For 38 weekends throughout the 2024 season, the focus in the NASCAR Cup Series garage is solely on drivers, pit crews and on-track products. On Wednesday and Thursday, Hendrick Motorsports technicians had the chance to be the stars of the show at the 23rd annual Randy Dorton Hendrick Engine Builder Show presented by Valvoline.

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In total, 12 teams, consisting of one Hendrick Motorsports team technician and one Hendrick Automotive Group technician, did their best in the qualifying rounds, and in the end, two familiar names stood above the rest.

Danny Emerick, partnered with Shane Flake of Hendrick Toyota of Concord, and Scott Vester, partnered with Joe Gagatch of Hendrick Lexus of Charlotte, were scheduled to compete in the championship build round.

Heading into the event, Emerick and Vester were tied as the winningest mechanics in the competition’s history with six wins apiece. In the highly competitive final round, Emerick and Flake came first with an official construction time of 24 minutes 2.44 seconds, while Vester and Gagatch completed their construction in an official time of 24 minutes 33.88 seconds. Both teams each had a loose fastener, resulting in a 30-second penalty that was included in the official times.

Reaching the sacred number seven in the Hendrick Engine Builder Showdown is a truly special mark for Emerick.

“I remember last year on the same date talking to you about how special six is, but I told you how special number seven is; as you know, only Petty, Earnhardt, Johnson in races. So that’s not on the agenda. Emerick said, “it’s on the same level, but that’s number seven. “It carries a much stronger voice in sports,” he said. “The plaque I mentioned last year, with my name on our wall for the seventh time, is on the walls here, these are sacred places, right? Shane, you know, we’ve been great friends since we first met. I formed a partnership in 2021. “I can’t tell you how wonderful and special it is to have his name next to me, just to have my family here.”

Not only was it special for Emerick to take home his seventh championship in the prestigious engine development competition, but the fact that he did it against Vester, whom he considers the best ever, made it even more impactful.

“Competing against Scott, it’s kind of like when you win against Scott, it takes on a whole new meaning because in my book, he’s the best. I would say if you ask anyone else, they’d say the same thing,” Emerick noted. “And sometimes I like to do things the hard way, and I learned a lot from Scott. You know, we’ve been working side by side here for many years. He’s been a great friend, competitor and contributor.” “So whenever I can get together with Scott about anything, it’s really special.”

At the end of the event, the respect between Vester and Emerick was on full display as Vester presented Emerick with the trophy, an honor usually reserved for team owner Rick Hendrick. Since this is the last time Vester will compete in this event, he wanted to pass the torch to his colleague as he transitions from Hendrick Motorsports to a property management role at Hendrick Automotive Group.

Even making it to the final round was a challenge for Emerick and Flake as they went on to lift trophies at the end of the event. When Emerick tried a new method of building his engines, he thought it would save his team a few precious seconds. on the construction floor.

This cost them more than two and a half minutes as they struggled to resolve issues caused by their attempt to shorten things up. Emerick says he’s glad his mistake didn’t cost Flake and himself a chance to compete for the title.

“I felt like we left the door wide open in the knockout round. I made a mistake, not Shane,” Emerick admitted. “But if I were the others I would use it as motivation. Luckily for us but not for them, no one else took advantage of that window. I told Shane if we came back the game would start. I knew what we could do, we stepped up and did it and here we are.”

When asked if he tried the new method in the final build, Emerick laughed, “Absolutely not. I’ll never do that again. These things bite me sometimes, they’ve bit me before. You just try to find a solution.” A new trick that will save you 10 seconds and cost you two and a half minutes. It was time for me to learn a lesson but thankfully our time passed the test and we got a second chance. I’m really grateful for it.”

Flake, who raced alongside Emerick at this event in 2021, resulting in a second-place effort, said of the Hendrick Engine Manufacturer Meet: “It’s pretty intense. It’s pretty intense,” and said he personally felt “like it was a huge success.” I’m glad it finally happened.”

The automotive technician for Hendrick Toyota of Concord is proud of his victory and is excited to see how he is treated at the shop when he returns to work.

Flake beamed with pride: “We’ll have some bragging rights.” “I don’t know yet if they’ll want the trophy back to the dealership, we’ll see. We’re going through a lot of renovations right now.”

I’m sorry, but I think the dealership will make room for the trophy.

Before the final construction, Emerick was focused on the construction floor as Vester walked the room and talked to people in the Hendrick organization. The mechanic tirelessly looked at the parts, the tools, and even noted how much lubricant was applied to each part so that he and Flake could get a better grasp of how the equipment would fit together as they began working on the build.

Ultimately, Emerick thinks the pre-production work makes the difference.

“It really was. I knew we were looking at oils and everything else, actually those, things with Scott I always knew down to a second and of course it did again,” Emerick said. “It really requires looking at every detail or making the pegs swing in the right direction. But yeah, Scott, he’s legendary in this competition, so we needed every bit of energy and tricks we could come up with.”

As Emerick chased his record seventh title at the event, Vester and Gagatch got off to a thrilling start by managing to mount the bottom half of the engine, first flipping it upside down. While he knew that Emerick generally specialized in creating a quicker build in the top half while Vester was generally quicker in the bottom half, he was a little concerned about the spacing that Vester’s team created on them.

“For me, 45 seconds is kind of a window. Scott had told me before that it’s always better on the lower end, and I’ll usually shake it up at about 45 seconds on the upper end. And I looked at the clock and looked at where we were when he did that and said, ‘Okay, let’s see some magic.’ “It was a minute and a half, like you said,” Emerick explained. “Luckily they had a problem and that opened the door for us to take advantage of it. So it was very exciting. We were really excited, it’s amazing.”