Passion for race cars lands him a job by Carol Schmidt, MSU Communications Services Rob Ridgely's career has been off to the races since he graduated from MSU in 2002 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Ridgely, now living in Indianapolis, Ind., is an assistant data acquisition engineer on a CART Champ Car team that is racing throughout America and the world. Ridgely works on the Herdez cart car team based in Indianapolis. It is a two-car, 50-person team including two drivers--veteran Roberto Moreno and the 2002 series Rookie of the Year, Mario Dominguez. The team is sponsored by Grupo Herdez, a salsa manufacturer based in Mexico City. "I love the work," Ridgely said during a recent interview while the team was racing in Portland. "I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else." Ridgely's seemingly fast start into the high stakes world of car racing is anything but. A native of Wheeling, W.V., Ridgely's family was made up of race car enthusiasts. Even though the family moved frequently, they always found races. Ridgely grew up building cars in one form or another. While attending high school in Maryland, Ridgely set aim on a career in race car engineering. The next step was to choose a college that would put him on track to accomplish his goals. "We visited Montana in the summer and it was beautiful," said Ridgely. He checked out several colleges with degrees in race car engineering, "which were really graduate programs. I was looking for a good, solid engineering degree." Also a skier, he chose Montana State. "I had done my research," said Ridgely, who said he received an excellent education in Bozeman and made the MSU program work for him. For instance, while at MSU he built a racecar. "I had a budget while I was in school and that's where my money went." Well, maybe not all of his money. While at MSU, Ridgely met Robin Kerbel, an industrial engineering student from Billings who also graduated in 2002. The two were married and moved to Indianapolis where Robin went to work for RCI and Rob networked to get a job in the racing industry. His break came when he attended a racing data acquisition seminar in Florida. A contact there was a crew chief on a Grand Am car. Ridgely went with him to help engineer a car that was racing on the East Coast. Ridgely had originally planned to go to a master's program in race car engineering this year, but instead worked the contacts he had made with the Grand Am car and found a job with the Herdez crew after meeting team manager Vince Kremer. "We hit it off pretty well," Ridgely said. Kremer gave him a job as a wiring and radio specialist. He works on the cars' hardware, wiring, computers and the data acquisition system on the car, including radios and telemetry radios. He also works on supplementary equipment off the car, such as the timing stands that are set up in pit lanes. "The guys, everyone I work with, are more like family than co-workers," Ridgely said of the crew members that are from throughout the world. Ridgely's future plans in racing include the eventual moving up to work as a data acquisition engineer with a long-term goal of being a race engineer. Ridgely explains that the race engineer is the engineer in charge of all decisions involving a car. But right now, Ridgely has a lot of work with a team that is contending for the Cart Car championships and races throughout the U.S. and Canada with stops in Mexico and Australia. Ridgely said even though he has watched races his entire life from the stands, it is completely different from the viewpoint of a crew member. "The guys behind the walls, the efficiency of operation, it is all just very interesting to me. It's just a great job."