Trevor McCallion

Read enough “Member Spotlight” features and you might hear many of the same themes about how people became involved with NASA. The most common narrative is that NASA members have been into cars their whole lives, and hung around cars and car guys ever since they can remember, and once they got to a place in life where they could afford to go racing, that’s what they did.

For NASA Texas Spec Miata series leader Trevor McCallion, it didn’t go down that way at all. Sure, McCallion has been into cars his whole life. In fact, his first car was a 1968 Camaro, a car many a NASA racer grew up with toying with, whether it was yours or your buddy’s.

“I grew up in Kentucky so we’d have all the muscle cars and we’d find all the back roads and we’d find a quarter mile strip and try to race,” said McCallion, age 45. “We did it that as kids. We probably shouldn’t have and you don’t tell your parents you did all that stuff, but I’ve always enjoyed cars.”

But when the idea to race came up, it wasn’t one of his car buddies goading him into weekends of obscene fun at the track. It was his mentor, who had helped him throughout his IT career, with the occasional tangents into personal advice.

“He’s the one who actually got me into racing, and the question he posed to me one day was, “What does Trevor do for Trevor?” said McCallion, who lives in Frisco, Texas. “I quickly came back and said, ‘I do things for myself. I go to church. I really believe in spending time with my son and cherish that, and family.’ He said, ‘All those things are important. Those are things you should do, but what does Trevor still do just for Trevor,’ and I didn’t have an answer for that.

“So he told me to think about what I would love to do and come back and follow up in two weeks,” McCallion said. “He didn’t put any guidelines or barriers around the discussion, just ‘If Trevor could do anything, what would it be?’ I came back two weeks later and said, you know, I’ve thought about it. And what you asked me, if you take everything away, and I could do what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little boy, it’s race a car.

“His answer to me was, ‘Go find out how to race a car,’” McCallion said.

And the race was on, literally and figuratively. That was 2005 and McCallion hasn’t looked back.

He dug around and found NASA, and went to his region’s next event at Motorsports Ranch Cresson to learn as much as he could about NASA and to determine which classes he liked.

“I went there and spent the day looking at all the different classes and I got excited about CMC and AI guys and standing starts and all that,” he said. “And I looked in the afternoon, and of course with those guys, there was quite a bit of wrenching going on with those cars.

“Then you look over at the Spec Miata guys and two or three of them are flipping up their hoods, and they’re checking the oil and they close the hood and then they’re sitting around the grill drinking beer,” he said with a laugh. “I said, ’You know what? That’s for me, right there.’”

He never even drove one or sat in one or anything. He spent the next several months saving money, then he went out, bought a 1995 model, built it to spec, then spent the next year in HPDE learning to drive it. After a year in NASA’s HPDE ladder, he went racing.

In his first few races, McCallion would start at the back of the pack, which helped him learn to pass and to drive in traffic. Little by little, he got faster and faster, and started winning races, which is always fun, but it also helped him get into the 1999 model car he races today.

“I was approached by a gentlemen who was looking for a car for his son,” McCallion said. “He was wondering if my car would be for sale. I told him I was thinking about potentially moving to a ‘99, but nothing was definite yet, so it really wasn’t up for sale at the time. He said, ‘Everything is up for sale at any given time. Just give me a number.’ And when I gave him the number, he said, ‘Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. I’ll take delivery Tuesday.’”

Now the Texas Spec Miata series leader, McCallion is active in coaching and instructing the mid-pack drivers and those bringing up the rear. It seems fitting that someone whose mentor has been so helpful to him should take time during a race weekend to help others.

When he isn’t at the track, McCallion is a single dad who is active with his 12-year-old son, who likes playing baseball and football. McCallion even plays baseball with his son when father-and-son games come up. When they’re not on the ball field, they both enjoy collecting sports cards and memorabilia. McCallion does those things for his son, but when it’s time to go racing, he is doing that for himself.

“If you’re not happy, no one else around you will be happy. You grow from within and that will transfer outward,” McCallion said. “Everyone asks me, ‘Isn’t racing kind of expensive?’ I tell them, ‘You know what,? It’s either racing or I go see a shrink. One of the two. They’re both going to cost me.’

“It’s absolute stress relief for me,” he added. “I go to the track and I turn off my phone. I’m there for me and that’s the purpose for it. It’s my recharge weekend.”