Mark Chambers was introduced to motorsports at an early age. As a child, Chambers went the local racetrack with his grandfather, who raced at the local dirt tracks in and around their hometown of Bowling Green, Ind. Chambers’ family spent endless hours preparing their cars to race each Friday and Saturday night.
As Chambers grew older, he began participating in activities outside of racing. He lettered in both basketball and track during high school, then received a degree in electronic engineering from Indiana State University. Despite his success outside racing, Chambers yearned to be part of the motorsports industry.
He searched for his opportunity to join the industry upon his graduation from college. He knew the industry was moving toward a need for engineering support staff, and his electronic engineering background gave him something to offer. Chambers sent his resume to different racing organizations, and Pi-Research Co., which specialized in data acquisition hardware and software, soon offered Chambers an entry-level job as a support engineer. For the next decade, Chambers navigated his way through the company and eventually became the vice president of operations. He moved to North Carolina to run the Charlotte office.
In 2002, Chambers joined Richard Childress Racing as a team engineer for the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Busch Series programs. The team achieved success in both of NASCAR’s top levels, winning the spring Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway and compiling 10 top-five finishes and 19 top-10 finishes by season’s end.
Chambers left RCR and the racing industry altogether after the 2003 season to assume a position as a financial planner in Charlotte. It only took a couple of months for him to realize racing was in his blood. He contacted his friends from GM Racing, and they soon offered him an engineering position in the Corvette program.
Chambers competed in his first season with the Pratt Miller Engineered Corvette Race team in 2004. The group won all 11 events in which it entered, including the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans, before capturing the series championship. The team knew it had a tough assignment in 2005 in its quest to repeat as champions. The team won 10 of 11 events, repeated as the 24 Hours of Le Mans winner and garnered another championship.
Despite his success on the track, Chambers wanted to take on a new challenge. He was approached with the opportunity to become team manager for the Bill Davis Racing NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series entries. Chambers knew BDR was a first-class operation and accepted the challenge. With Toyota’s strong racing program and Davis’ experience in racing, it was an opportunity he could not pass up.
And what a good fit it was. Chambers led the Truck trio to a total of six wins, nine poles, 21 top-five finishes and 30 top-10 finishes during the 2006 Craftsman Truck Series campaign, and he led the BDR Truck stable to nine wins, 12 poles, 30 top-five finishes and 42 top-10 finishes in 2007. Chambers has definitely made his mark not only at Bill Davis Racing, but in NASCAR as well.
With Chambers becoming such a dominant figure at Bill Davis Racing, the well rounded Truck Team Manager has now assumed the role of General Manager starting in the 2008 season.