Google search landed one Texas State student his dream internship with NASCAR

Ernest “Trey” Gomez III has probably the best paid internship a college student could have hoped for — or what he calls “a win-win.”

A lifelong fan of NASCAR, Gomez says he was Googling ‘Jobs at NASCAR’ over Thanksgiving break when he saw a listing for the NASCAR Diversity Internship Program (NDIP). “I've been a lifelong NASCAR fan since I could walk and been able to speak. I always thought of it as something that I just put my attention toward on Sundays,” he said.

A native of San Antonio who attended John Marshall High School, Gomez said his father introduced him to NASCAR. He also shared this passion with an uncle and aunt. “It's just always been a big part of my family to tell you the truth. I mean, I've been going to Texas Motor Speedway out of Fort Worth for the past 15 years as a fan.”

Gomez, 20, was well into his junior year at Texas State as an English major in the Honors College and a Stelos Scholar when he saw the internship notice.  “I figured that if I can at least get to the interview process I could flaunt my knowledge and fandom for the sport and hopefully that can carry me through. Luckily, it did,” he said. “It really was a lot of luck that brought me here, but I wouldn't trade it for anything else, so I'm super, super happy. This has been an awesome experience, to say the least.”

One of Gomez’s assignments was to update the files on drivers. That job took about two weeks and he also created web pages for each driver. That’s when he was glad he had taken “Intro to Mass Communications” in the spring semester with Laurie Fluker, associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. “That class did wonders for me,” Gomez said.  He is now minoring in Mass Communications and will complete his Honors thesis about NASCAR. Mass Communications lecturer Charles Kaufman is his mentor and thesis advisor.

Gomez knows a lot about NASCAR. He knows about the drivers, the history, the cars, the fans, and how it became a $660 million industry. He believes the sport is in a “pretty good place right now.”

“I talked to Steve Phelps the president of NASCAR a couple of weeks ago and he told me all these same things, that the summer 2020 time period of NASCAR's history was so instrumental for what we're doing now. We're just continuing to push boundaries, take risks.

Trey and Robert Pockrass, an American motorsports journalist and on-air talent for Fox Sports who covers NASCAR.

“Last week we announced we're going to do a street race in downtown Chicago next year, something we've never done — a street race in an urban populated area,” he said.

A few weeks ago, Gomez got the chance to attend a race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. He met drivers and members of the pit crews. His favorite driver, Corey Lajoie is the son of two-time NASCAR Busch Series champion Randy LaJoie. Corey drives the No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Spire Motorsports. “He drives for an underfunded team, they're not as competitive as the top tier guys, but for whatever reason, he was leading laps consistently at that race. Being there in person was like, holy c—p! Like, this is what it feels like to witness your guy do good in person,” Gomez said.

“He got a big run coming into the second turn and the guy in first (Chase Elliott) put a big block on him and ended up sending him into the wall and ended his day on the last lap. I was watching that race, that part of the race from his pit box, right where the cars come in to do their pit stops.”

Then Gomez and several interns got to shake hands with LaJoie. “That's like being a Yankees fan in the '20s and ’30s and getting to meet Babe Ruth or something, right?” he asked.

His internship ends Aug. 12, then it is back to San Marcos for the start of classes. And while Gomez hasn’t gotten behind the wheel of a race car – he did get to experience spinning out at a go-kart track during their intern orientation. “I spun out like three different times, hit the walls like I was a hazard on the track. I had fun. I'm not going lie about that,” he said.