January 4, 2020 | By Kathrin Havrilla-Sanchez, College of Engineering Magazine

Chris Golder, Jr. (B.S. ME ’04), Shock Engineer at Hendrick Motorsports, was featured in the "Rising Stars of Engineering" section of the most recent edition of the Georgia Tech College of Engineering's Helluva Engineer magazine. Here is his story.

Chris Golder, Jr., acquired his love for automobiles and motorsports from his father, who owned an auto repair shop in Atlanta for over 35 years.

“Growing up, I restored classic cars, raced go-karts, and attended races with my dad,” says Golder. “While attending Georgia Tech, we also engineered and built our own racing truck and competed at short tracks in North Georgia, including Lanier National Speedway.”

After graduating, Golder began working for Hendrick Motorsports— one of America’s premier sports series—in Charlotte, NC, first working solely on the Hendrick Motorsports 9 Team before transitioning to support all four of the company’s cars in NASCAR’s Cup Series. He uses computer-based modeling, simulation tools, and testing apparatus to optimize the performance of the race cars, focusing on incremental gains in areas such as increasing tire grip and downforce by fractional, yet meaningful, amounts.

For the last 16 years, Golder has spent 10 months of each year traveling to races across North America working to deliver cutting-edge technology to Hendrick’s team. He has worked closely with some of NASCAR’s most well-known drivers, including Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott.