Maquoketa native contributing to Briscoe's success

NEWTON - Travis Law set out for North Carolina five years ago with the goal of working for a race team.

It didn't take long for the Maquoketa native to land a spot with one of the elite racing teams in motorsports.

Law is in his first season on the IZOD IndyCar Series, serving as the front-end mechanic and inside changer for Ryan Briscoe of Team Penske. He was right at home in the pits for the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway.

A group from back home, including his grandparents, attended the race to see him in action.

“It's good to come back and see a lot of friends and family,” Law said. “Have them come out to the track and see what all the hard work has been put in for.”

The hard work started in 2005 when Law moved to North Carolina to attend NASCAR Technical Institute to become a race car tech. He started working in the American Le Mans Series before joining Briscoe's crew. Law, who used to race open-wheel modifieds on area tracks in Farley, Dubuque and the Quad Cities, had to make a bit of an adjustment for the switch.

“It's a bit different from the sports cars just because they're short endurance races,” Law said. “You have to be prepared, because the time to react is a lot shorter. Through practice and repetition you start to develop a second nature for everything that happens."

During the races, Law changes the inside front tire and makes wing adjustments. Time is precious for stops and Law said a good stop is about four seconds. The driver's performance is a direct reflection to the crew's performance.

"His performance and also our performance, we base it off each other, depending how he gets in the box and hits his marks, which helps us out a lot,” Law said. “When the driver helps us we can obviously help them.”

Briscoe qualified eighth and is coming off a win in the Firestone 550K at Texas Motor Speedway June 5. The win pushed him to fifth in the IndyCar Series points standings entering the Iowa Corn 250. Briscoe was able to make a late push and climb to a fourth-place finish.

"I'm so happy with this fourth-place finish today," said Briscoe, noting he had a bit of a loose car that had trouble over the infamous bump between Turns 1 and 2. "We made a few changes during the pit stops and they gave me positions on the yellow stops. That was really good."

Law is living out his dream, working for a racing organization that earned a record seventh-straight IndyCar Series pole, when Will Power turned in the fastest qualifying performance Saturday. Helio Castroneves, also a Team Penske driver, started fourth. The organization has earned the pole position in 190 open-wheel races and 383 overall. It's not surprising Law called it the "cream of the crop" for race teams.

“Your one goal is to go out and win every week,” Law said. “Working with (owner) Roger (Penske), he outworks anybody every day of the wee, so it's really good to work for him.”

Law is one of a handful of Iowans on IndyCar teams. Renwick's Corey Odenbrett also works for Team Penske as a member of Power's pit crew. Josh Junge, of Keystone, is a member of Raphael Matos' crew, while Muscatine's Brett Snyder is a team member for Simona de Silvestro.