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Mexico City somewhere next to Pit Road Sunday at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Jose Blasco-Figueroa will align with his teammates in the track house races and hear something he has never heard before a Nascar Cup race.
The Mexican national anthem.
Only the idea of that became the 52-year-old native of Mexico City ‘when he spoke to NBC Sports earlier this month.
But there is something else that makes the senior performance engineer’s way to this weekend even more special.
He became an American citizen in April.
The first cup race he heard the “The Star-Spangled Banner” after becoming an American citizen was the Coca-Cola 600 on Charlotte car Speedway. The emotional preaching ceremonies reached a crescendo with the national anthem against the background of the Memorial Day weekend.
Blasco-Figueroa admits that he felt “kind of different” to hear the national anthem as a citizen compared to previous times. “It felt wonderful.”
Just as he imagines what it would be like to hear the Mexican national anthem before the first Nascar Cup points outside the continental vs since 1958.
“To go back and listen to it, it will probably be the best part of the race for me, no matter what happens,” he said. “Because … I haven’t heard it yet (at a cup of cup). I haven’t experienced it yet. ‘
Mexico’s Autódromo Hermanos, Rodríguez, is about 7,500 feet above sea level and the thinner air will affect engines.
He is here 25 kilometers from his mother’s home and helps oversee engineering aspects for Trackhouse drivers Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez and Shane van Gisbergen. Each has won a roadway race with the next Gen Car (since 2022).
Blasco Figueroa never thought his way to Nascar was leading. He did not come from a race family, but his interest in the sport was raised when he received a motor formula-one car-car-formula car as a child.
Intrigated by how things worked, he became an engineer. He spent his first 23 years in Mexico city and joined General Motors. The company sent him to Michigan for about 18 months before returning to Mexico. He left GM to obtain his master’s degree in England. He hoped to get a job with a Formula One team, but nothing was realized.
Blasco Figueroa returned to work for GM in Mexico. At one point he worked for GM, taught motor engineers and worked with a Nascar Mexico series. Eventually, he left his GM track to focus on racing. In 2016, he went to Charlotte, North Carolina, and abandoned his CVs at race stores. A few days later he had three job offers.
Some practiced in an oxygen order, as seen by Tyler Reddick on a bicycle in the Toyota Performance Center, and some slept in hypoxic tents.
He worked at BK Racing, Richard Childress Racing and now Trackhouse Racing. He is working on various projects for trackhouse and teaching the younger engineers
Blasco-Figueroa recently completed the “Data Science and Machine Learning: Making Data-Driven Decisions program of 12 weeks through the MIT Institute for Data, Systems and Society. He spent eight to 12 hours a week on the course.
“You have to keep up with technology,” Blasco-Figueroa said. ‘Data science takes over many things. … Ai is just a small part of data science. For us, here, racing, the amount of data we have is great. ‘
“A lot of people just thinking about making your quick cars. Yes, you have to make quick cars, but you have to run, right? Therefore, strategy is also part of the game. How to drive your car, how you drive tires. All this comes in place. We only saw it in the (Coca-Cola) 600. Chastain).
If Trackhouse wins in Mexico on Sunday, it would complete a memorable day for Blasco-Figueroa that began the audience of the Mexican national anthem for the first time in front of a cup race.
