"Dude, there's our car!"
Kent Moore, Lead Technician, Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing
By Kate Shaw
Photos © David Babcock
LA SARTHE, France (June 8, 2004) – Kent Moore started out thinking he’d like to be an American soccer player, but in fact, all his life long he dreamed and schemed to get involved in motor racing. Somewhere during his semi-pro career he decided, “Hey, you can’t make any money at this,” and by what he terms “a fluke event” he got his chance to pursue his dream. He started out in club racing, helping out with the cars of friends and eventually with the cars of customers at his business, Premier SportsCar Service, now a sponsor of PWL. At the beginning he was entirely self-taught, but when it appeared that he had a definite flair for race preparation as well as a desire to make it his life work, he took a four year course in engineering. He was hired by PWL “by word of mouth,” and with typical modesty recounted, “They hadn’t won an ALMS race before I joined them but they had had a lot of success in off-road racing and had won the Six Hours of Watkins Glen. So they were really well established as a winner. The first race after I joined the team, we finished seventh, and the next five races we won – but that had nothing to do with me, really! I just came in at the right time and helped where I could.” The team tell a different story. “Kent,” I was told, “could tear the car down and rebuild it by himself if necessary!”

Moore’s job entails managing both the car and the staff of 4 who work for him, and reports to the crew chief and engineers. He worked closely with White to develop the system in which the car is prepped before each event. For example, after the Test Day in April, he directed mechanical work on the car as it was disassembled into units that will be used as spares during the race – “Anything that can be bolted up,” he explained, “has been bolted up and if we have a disaster as we had last year with the radiator, we just rip the whole section off the car and bolt up the new one! We’re prepared to replace anything up to a full quarter section of the car, and everybody who works with me knows exactly the way I want it done.” Moore explained that he has significant impact on the hiring of technicians that work most closely with him. With that, he stresses compatibility as much as technical skill. “My crew have to gel together, like husbands and wives,” he said. “They have to be able to read each others’ minds and anticipate each move to be made. And you can teach a compatible guy the technical skills, but if he’s not compatible with the rest of the guys, it doesn’t matter whether he can rebuild the Empire State Building. He can’t work with my team.” I asked kiddingly if he thought the team would let him hire Jean Todt, and he answered with confidence, “If I could give them a good reason for it, they’d do it. They give me anything I need to get the job done – they show entire confidence in me.”

Not only are the team picked for their compatibility with one another, they are trained to sub for one another in a pinch. Even the truck driver can be pressed into service as a refueller if needed. And Moore, of course, can fill in for any one of them, and if need be will wade right in. I asked him about sleeping and eating during the 24 Hours, and he shook his head. “I eat very little during the 24 hours,” he said, “and I don’t sleep at all. The crew do, of course, but whenever I need one of them they show-up and are instantly ready to do what needs doing. It’s the way we make sure the car keeps going round and round on the track: I keep the big picture in my mind every time we send the car out, and that allows the rest of the team to focus on their individual tasks. That’s what teamwork is all about and why we are such a good team.” All of this was said with a smile; Moore is no Napoleon of the Pitlane. It’s just that somebody has to make the decisions about who does what on the car and how and he is the one that does.

Finally I asked him what he liked best about being at Le Mans. “I love road racing,” he said instantly. “I’ve done all kinds of racing, including NASCAR, and this is the kind of thing I really enjoy – unlike NASCAR, where the technology doesn’t change and the tracks have very little variety, our cars change weekly and sometimes hourly. You have to keep up every minute or you will be left behind. And the track conditions are always different – not only a difference in turns (because we turn left and right both) but a difference in terrain, in configuration, and in surfaces, sometimes within a race. I like the challenge of sports car racing. And working with a team like Petersen/ White Lightning, well that would be any guy’s dream.”