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CONCORD — Who says having a little brother is such a bad thing?
If it weren’t for his little brother, Eric, Josh Yost, 22, might not have a job with the Sabco racing organization.
“He helped me get an interview up there,” Josh explained.
Both brothers, who live in China Grove, work at Sabco, with Josh normally handling chores on the Glenn Allen No. 82 Channellock Busch car and Eric handling Kenny Irwin’s No. 42 BellSouth Winston Cup car.
With Irwin adding several races on the Busch circuit, Josh will work on Irwin’s car for those races. He’ll be there Saturday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Though the brothers may work for the same company, their jobs are as different as the teams they work for.
Josh is a general mechanic and a jack man, while Eric, 20, handles fabricating chores for all of Sabco’s race cars and carries tires on race day when Kenny Irwin drives.
Sabco operates five teams — two full-time Winston Cup cars driven by Irwin and Sterling Marlin, two full-time Busch cars driven by Blaise Alexander and Glenn Allen and Irwin’s limited Busch schedule.
With so many teams, Eric stays busy at the shop.
“We do all five teams out of the fab shop,” Eric said. “We get the chassis in here, and we have about a week to do the chassis prep, welding all the bars, drilling all the holes... and we send it off to get the body put on it.
“And we need about four or five days to do the after-body (work, including) windows, crushed panels... so usually I stay down on the chassis end of it and do the grinding and welding part of it.”
Eric has a lot of experience.
He first got a ’68 Camaro when he was only 11, and he’s worked on it for years. First, he did paint and body work on it when he worked at a body shop that handled classic cars and street cars.
He later moved to Hot Rod Watty’s Speed and Fabrication, whose owner introduced him to the Sabco team.
He’s been with Sabco nearly three years now.
And when a job came open later, Eric got big bro’ Josh an interview. Josh has been working with Sabco for nearly a year now.
Josh spends most of his time at the track, but their time in the shop helps keep them together.
“Actually our shop is right in the same building... so I’m 20 feet from him all day long, just a doorway away,” Josh said.
The two have yet to work together at the track during a race.
“I haven’t done any pit crew work with him,” Josh said. “He’s always on a different team than I have been.”
The two watch each other work pit stops, though.
“We have a practice car, (a) full fledged car with body, and (we) have a pit wall...and do four or five or 10 stops sometimes,” Eric said.
If it weren’t for their time together in the shop, the two might not even see each other.
“He works a lot of hours and I do, too,” Josh said. “If I worked for another team altogether, I probably wouldn’t get to see him at all.”
That’s something you ought to keep in mind if you’re trying to get a job with a team. They travel to more than 30 races each year.
“It’s not all you think it is,” Josh said. “It’s a good job. It’s nice to get out and travel and see some things, but it’s hard. It’s a lot of hours (and) a lot of time away from home.”
Josh is currently single, making travel easier. His brother, who is getting married in July, often flies out to the race the day of the event and spends more time at home.
Josh was lucky enough to ease into the job, rather than starting full throttle. At first, he worked on Sabco’s research and development team.
“It was actually a (Winston) Cup race car. We did some stuff with Jeff Green and Ron Hornaday... So I’d be testing for maybe two weeks, and then we’d have a weekend or two off. Than we’d have like one race a month.
“I definitely got a lot of experience at the shop before I had to go on the road and do it full fledged.”
He also credits his teachers, including car chief Ed Buffington and crew chief Bob Temple.
“(With) two good guys like that it’s not hard to learn real quick,” he said.
Despite the hard schedule, Josh has enjoyed some rare opportunities.
Because World Championship Wrestling sponsors Blaise Alexander, he’s gotten to see several wrestlers and traveled to the South Beach of Miami, Las Vegas and Hollywood.
What he enjoys most is “just being able to get out and enjoy a little bit of traveling before you get too old to enjoy it,” Josh said, “just getting to see those places that I’d never have gotten to see staying here in Rowan County.”
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