“I feel lucky to be here”
Troy Hildreth, Tireman, Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing
By Kate Shaw
Photos courtesy Margot Orenchuk

LA SARTHE, France (June 11, 2004) – Troy Hildreth is the junior member of the Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing team, at least in full time seniority. He has been working for them as a tireman part time, for the past three years, but Sebring 2004 was his first full time race. “I had to get into racing,” he told me. “I am a friend of Kent [Moore, the Lead Technician] and I’m a huge Porsche fan! I’ve driven a Porsche, in fact, since I was 18.”

Troy described his work as “exciting work, but a lot of work.” The tireman is the man you see wheeling the stacks of tires to the pits, usually at a dead run – tires must be changed, or ready for changing – every 50-60 minutes during an endurance race. Before they can come down to be used, they must be prepped – taking out any and all water, setting the pressures as directed by the engineer, and cleaning them thoroughly. A stone or an object in a tire could cause a puncture or slow leak that could ruin a race, so the tireman must be very careful. That goes for putting in the correct pressures, too; these are determined according to the time, heat, temperature and track conditions, and if one or more of the tires is out of synch, well you can just imagine.

The forecast had been hinting at rain for qualifying and I asked Troy if he thought that would be good or bad for the No. 90 car. “Rain is good,” he said. “Tires last longer in the rain, which is a reprieve for the tireman! But actually, the car runs better in the dry, and today is perfect – 75 degrees with no wind – for our car.”

This is Troy’s first year at Le Mans, and he admitted with a grin that he too had stood in the pitlane and said, “I’m at Le Mans!”
“It’s the most prestigious race in the world,” he enthused. “I am so lucky to be here! I just stand around – when I have the time – and say to myself, wow, I’m at Le Mans!”

About his team members he had nothing but praise. “These guys are so easy to work with. I’m not a very humorous guy, as a rule, but these guys crack me up! We all work together so well and everybody treats everybody with respect, no matter what kind of job he is doing. Yeah, it’s hard and sometimes you get tired, but if everybody’s working together you don’t notice it somehow.”

Since Troy had mentioned that he is a Porsche owner, I asked, “What if some day they left the keys in the ‘ho car’ there … would you like to take it out on the track for a spin?”

Needless to say, his face lit up at the idea. “Sure I would!” he answered. “I look at that beauty and I think to myself how great it would be to come down here some night and just take it out for a spin. Not gonna happen, of course. But a guy can dream.”

Troy Hildreth is indeed fortunate, as he says, to be working for the best GT team on the grid – as they proved, at least for now, by qualifying first in GT over 2 seconds faster than the next car up. And Troy the tireman can be justly proud he’s earned a share of that pre-victory. Now if they can just do that in the race …

And if Troy has anything to do with it – they will.