SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/485293
When top teams like Rob McCachren, BJ Baldwin, Andy McMillin, and a host of other SCORE Trophy Truck racers want a winning engine, many of them seek the knowledge of Kevin Kroyer. While he’s definitely earned a reputation as a pro-engine builder, earning numerous awards including SCORE Engine Builder Of The Year five years in a row, Kroyer’s success comes straight from a passion for winning. “I get as much satisfaction out of winning a race with a vehicle we’ve worked on versus sitting in the driver’s seat,” says Kroyer. “The opportunity we have to contribute to any race team’s success has motivated me personally and pushed this business forward. Sometimes the way we do things isn’t necessarily the most profitable, but the extra attention to details allows us to win more, and that leads to being more successful in the long run.” But the long list of teams that have won with Kroyer Racing Engines wouldn’t have been possible without Kevin’s dad Fritz Kroyer, who became a desert racer and a big inspiration for Kevin’s passion towards racing and winning. After years being exposed to it, following and helping his dad, Kroyer earned a spot as a regular crew member with the Walker Evans team. This began a 10 year span of gaining an incredible amount of experience working on a variety of desert, short-course, NASCAR and stadium series race vehicles. “I was lucky enough to work with some of the icons in the industry,” says Kroyer. “If you look up the Walker Evans employee tree at that time, it was made up of people like Randy Anderson, John Nelson, and many others who you’ll find are some of the most famous names in desert racing.” It was also during this time that Kroyer began working on engines and was able to learn how important it was for the engine to compliment the other components in the vehicle, including the driver. Kroyer admits that much of his knowledge in building race engines, came from working with talented mentors, doing much of the work in-house, and working on several engines that would be used for various types of racing. “At that time, Walker Evans would jump out of a Pro4 and move into a Trophy Truck. Then he’d move out of the Trophy Truck and jump into his NASCAR Super Truck. On top of that we had multiple teams working with us who were also doing the same thing. So over the years, I gained a lot of experience of what the engine needed to do for each application.” Matching The Engine To The Team, Vehicle, And Driver Working on everything from NASCAR, short course, desert and even stadium racing vehicles, Kroyer learned intricate details of engine building which allows him to custom build an engine to a team’s specific needs. “Every team, vehicle and driver is different. So we work closely with drivers, crew chiefs and anyone involved to create a complete package that works for their specific needs,” says Kroyer. In order to do this, the 10,000 square foot engine shop has every piece of equipment from a CNC machine to prep a block or cylinder head for competition, to