Jared Bell joined the Jensen MotorSport team in May 2009 for a summer internship. The 2nd year University of Calgary bachelor of commerce student wrote the below of his experiences since joning the team in May 2008.
"The last two months of my life have been, by far, the most challenging and exciting I have experienced yet. In late May I was given an amazing opportunity by Eric Jensen to work with Jensen Motor Sport during the second round of the 2008 Mazda Champ Car Atlantic Series at Laguna Seca raceway. I say the opportunity was amazing because I contacted Jensen Motor Sport in regards to a position within the team, while I have no prior motor sport experience – just a love of racing and the will to work extremely hard to pursue a career in it. That weekend in Laguna Seca was an enormous learning experience (as every day is at the race shop) and ended up being my first step with the team, as I was offered a full-time position at Jensen Motor Sport’s Montreal shop one week later.
(above photo taken in front of the Ferrari F1 team pit box at the Montreal Grand Prix)
Being from Calgary, it has been a very big change coming to Montreal and adjusting to life here (especially since Mr. Jensen offered me the position less than a week before I was to start with the team in Montreal!) However, it has been incredible to work with the cars and team members daily, all of whom are extremely intelligent and friendly people. The mechanics and engineers have helped me enormously to learn the different parts of the car and the thousands of adjustments that can be made to it, I have learned to do things from proper tyre and wheel preparation, to carrying out a full car set-up on the pad (although I still need much more practice with that to be able to carry it out completely on my own – and not drive the crew crazy with questions!), and I try to catch a mechanic every time a gearing change is being made to the cars so that I may learn that process as well.
I cannot express how much I have learned in these two short months, not only in relation to the Atlantic and Formula BMW cars, but about life on the road with a race team (I’m writing this article on a plane to Edmonton, Alberta for the 4th round of the Atlantic series), and the business of motor sport in general. I also cannot express how much fun it has been working with such a great crew of people, and being around the racetrack and cars – these last couple of months are definitely going to be remembered for a very long time, and I hope that the coming months are even more memorable."
Jared Bell |