The glass display cases in the small lobby at Sam Schmidt Motorsports' headquarters on the west side of Indianapolis are overflowing with trophies – since 2004, the team has won 22 Indy Pro Series races and its drivers' three championships.
Walk past the displays and into the race shop and the reason for the team's success soon becomes apparent – it's down to the people. All of the outfit's engineers and mechanics who work tirelessly to put three or four cars on the track every weekend have long and successful careers in their field.
“In a support series, one of the biggest difficulties we face each season is to develop the next Alex Lloyd,” team owner Sam Schmidt said of the 2007 IPS Champion, who thoroughly dominated the campaign courtesy of eight victories. “The drivers are rarely consistent from year-to-year – the only thing that is constant is our team.
“Our overall strategy is to assemble a team [whose] first purpose when we hit the track each weekend is to win races. We have the type of people on our team that can work in the IndyCar Series.”
Indeed, many of the crew members at Sam Schmidt Motorsports have spent years working at the highest levels of open-wheel racing. While Schmidt himself provides overall guidance for the team from his Las Vegas home, the day-to-day details are taken care of by team manager Chris Griffis.
“The number one asset we have is definitely our employees,” underlined Griffis, whose career began more than 20 years ago back in 1985 with Patrick Racing, and includes Indianapolis 500 success in 1989. “We've corralled a group of guys who are racers.”
Many of those racers have known each other and worked together for years, building trust in each other and a sense of family. Griffis and John Roof Jnr – the chief mechanic on Lloyd's championship-winning car – have been together off-and-on since 1991. Chief engineer Tim Neff and Griffis also worked together in the 1990s.
“It's like a family here,” added mechanic Mike Meyer, whose great grandfather was Louis Meyer, the first three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. “We all look out for each other.”
“We've got the best group of people we've ever had,” concluded Schmidt, “from a talent perspective [and from] a morale perspective. Everybody equally brings something to the table. They don't mess around; they do it right the first time. They're true professionals.”
