IT'S WELL PAST QUITTING TIME at Corvette Racing headquarters, yet air tools are still shrieking. In the corner of a shop large enough to hold not just three Corvette race cars but also three semitrucks, mechanics sprint around one of the cars, practicing a tire change. "Fourteen point two! That's slow. Do it again," shouts a guy standing on a ladder. A good time is a half second quicker, an eternity in racing.

The tension in this nondescript office park northwest of Detroit is palpable. In 36 hours, two C7.Rs will begin a trailered journey to Florida, where they will finally face the new Ford GT in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. In Motown, this is a rivalry on par with Ali versus Frazier.

Everyone knows the new Ford looks faster. It's exotic, a limited-production, carbon-fiber tub of rolling speed built without regard for expense or profitability. The Corvette, by comparison, is a commodity car, sold in the tens of thousands every year. Design decisions balance speed with cost. So the race version, the C7.R, enters the ring at an inherent disadvantage, right? Perhaps not.

Let's consider: Daytona is the Ford GT's first race. It's unproven, a precarious position at the start of an around-the-clock contest. The Corvette, on the other hand, has been a perpetual winner since 1999 in the American Le Mans series, and it's won its class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans eight times. Last year, Corvette took endurance racing's triple crown, with victories at Daytona, Sebring, and Le Mans.

Dan Binks, a stout, barrel-chested man with a crew cut, surveys the simulated pit stop. He looks to a young man fumbling with the just-removed right front tire. "He's new at this," Binks says, "but he'll get it. We'll show him."

Andrew Trahan

Binks, team crew chief and car chief of the No. 3 C7.R, is known in racing circles as the guy who gets it done, a self-taught mechanic and fabricator who knows not just how to thread a 3/16ths bolt, but also the tender art of keeping drivers and crews on their game. A long list of racing insiders identify Binks as a special talent, a man behind more racing championships than almost anyone. "For my money," says driver Tommy Kendall, "he's the greatest crew chief of all time." Binks is also a major factor in the Corvette's success. Just don't ask him about it.

"Now listen," Binks spits with a laser stare, "this isn't about me. We've got a large and very talented group here. I'm just the guy who makes sure the car is bolted together."

But he is more than just another cog in the machine. "Binks is as critical a component to our success as exists in our organization," says Doug Fehan, Corvette Racing's program manager.

There is no known recipe to produce a Dan Binks, but being born into a racing family is a good start. His father, Phil, grew up near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and was working at a nearby YMCA camp when Road America held its first race in 1955. The elder Binks moved to San Diego and promptly joined the burgeoning SoCal sports-car scene. There, he learned driving from Ken Miles—who helped develop the Mustang GT350, the Cobra, and the GT40 for Carroll Shelby—and met and married an equally car-crazy woman named Marge. Dan was born in 1963.

"My dad let me do everything," Binks remembers. "Drive, wrench, and experiment. He was never critical. I was allowed to make mistakes." The pair raced and tinkered together.

It didn't take long for the kid to gain a reputation as someone with special mechanical skill. Soon after Binks finished high school, Jim Bailey, manager of Phil Conte's racing team, hired him as a shop rat. "I've never seen anyone learn as quickly as Dan," Bailey says. The staff was thin, an opportunity for a hard-working youth eager to learn. "I soaked in everything," says Binks. In 1985, the Malibu Grand Prix team offered him a job at the then princely sum of $500 a week, on par with what drivers were making. He was 22. The team won the 1985 IMSA GTU championship with a Mazda RX-7. Then, Tommy Kendall arrived.

Andrew Trahan

Something between the two clicked. Kendall won the next two IMSA GTU championships. When Kendall moved to the Cars & Concepts team in Michigan, his first order of business was to coax his fellow Southern Californian to come along. Working in his favor was the fact that Binks's girlfriend (now his wife) was from Brighton, the town where the team was located. "That was just dumb luck," Kendall says. The duo won the 1990 Trans-Am championship. But their luck ran out the following year.

Kendall, driving the Chevy Intrepid GTP at Watkins Glen, crashed straight into a tire barrier at 140 mph. The impact pulverized his lower legs. The crash was caused by a hub failure—not something the driver or his crew chief could have helped. Still, Binks was shaken. "I still carry pictures of the damaged car," he says. Kendall recovered, and the pair moved to Roush Racing. There, Binks cemented his reputation as a tireless worker, matching Jack Roush's intensity. "I'd be in the shop," Binks remembers, "at 3 or 4 in the morning, just experimenting and implementing ideas from the engineers, and in would walk Jack. We'd just wave."

Kendall recalls a time he was giving someone a tour of the Roush shop: "Binks ran by, like, at a full-on sprint. We stopped him, thinking the building was about to explode, and asked what was wrong. Dan looked surprised and replied, 'Oh, nothing. Just getting a part.' That guy is full throttle all the time." Kendall and Binks dominated the series, winning three straight Trans-Am championships from 1995 to 1997, when Kendall retired.

Binks helped win the 2000 NASCAR Craftsman Truck championship before landing at Corvette in 2002. He quickly made his mark as a fierce competitor. In the second-to-last race of the 2003 season, the Corvette needed to finish in the top five to secure the class championship, and driver Johnny O'Connell bashed the left front suspension to bits.

"It was chaos," remembers Binks. "Everyone was screaming over the radio that we had to finish."

DW Burnett

In the pits, Binks assessed the broken pieces and fashioned a fix with a ratchet strap. O'Connell went back out, unaware of how his car had been repaired. "He thought the car felt so good, I had to keep telling him to slow down." The Corvette finished high enough to win the GTS championship over a Ferrari 550 Maranello. "I wouldn't do that today," Binks says. "It's not worth it. If I'd have hurt him, I'd never be able to live with myself."

For all his competitiveness, Binks is also frequently lauded for being willing to lend a hand, whether it's at a LeMons junker-car race or the Wisconsin YMCA camp that he helped reopen after it closed from lack of funding.

"Binks has earned the respect of everyone, which is the first thing to becoming an effective leader," says Jim Campbell, head of GM Motorsports.

That's good, because Binks works with everyone. One minute, he'll be barking at a young mechanic for talking on the phone ("I ask them: Are you calling me? Because I'm right here"). The next, he's working with an engineer on a new part.

"Engineers sometimes come up with the most god-awful thing that might make the car faster, but simply isn't practical," says Fehan, the Corvette Racing manager. "Dan's the sounding board for that stuff. One of the Corvette's secrets is that it's a relatively simple car. It's easy to work on. That's because of Dan."

Andrew Trahan

Watching Binks work on the rear brakes is mesmerizing. His hands, which look meaty enough to tear a steel plate, move deliberately but also fast, like they could do the job on muscle memory alone. It's impossible to keep from asking him basic questions about the hardware. Binks answers without a hint of arrogance. His eyebrows perk up and he gets engrossed in the elegant simplicity of hydraulic pressure transferring the motion of a driver's foot to the caliper. He ends most explanations with "See? It's easy." His enthusiasm is contagious, the satisfaction he derives from mentoring and instruction, plainly obvious.

It's thus not surprising that his 22-year-old son, Phil, is a professional mechanic. Only, there's a twist: He works for Chip Ganassi Racing, which is running the Ford GT. "I grew up with the Corvette guys," Phil says, "so of course I want to beat them."

That hasn't happened, yet. Binks Junior and his new colleagues spent much of the Rolex 24 struggling with gearbox problems on the Ford GT. Meanwhile, the Corvette team trucked on, dominating not just the Ford, but also the Ferrari 488, BMW M6, and Porsche 991 RSR. Ford might be getting all the attention this year, but to win, they'll have to contend with Dan Binks and Corvette.

"For my money," says driver Tommy Kendall, "he's the greatest crew chief of all time."

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