Introducing PT Autosport racecar technician/systems engineering associate Jay Dennis
My name is Jay Dennis. I am a lover of all things that you can race – a motorsports fiend, really, and I’m obsessed with high performance driving. Racing has been a big part of my life from the start. No matter what stage of my life I’ve been in, I’ve had motorsports to keep me sane and inspired, and has given me a place to express my emotions; not only as a competitor, but as a spectator and a team member.
Racing is much like any sport – in order to find success, you must be incredibly resilient to failure, get the reps in, and take as many shots as you can. With time, your shots get increasingly more accurate and you get a better understanding of what shots you should take. I knew at a very young age I wanted to race cars and that dream has introduced me to amazing people from all backgrounds, taken me to beautiful cities, and helped me mature as a man. At first, all I wanted to do was drive but as I travel through my motorsports path, I have become obsessed with the journey. There are many moving parts within the sport and so much to learn. Every opportunity has proven to be incredibly beneficial. I cherish the knowledge and memories I have acquired and wouldn’t trade them for anything.
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama but soon after, I moved to Salinas, California to live with my father and grandparents. They lived three miles away from Laguna Seca, where my earliest memories consist of going to the race track, tinkering on my father’s Porsche 911 SC, and making tracks in the dirt for matchbox cars. I couldn’t tie my shoes or put together a full sentence, but I could put a wheel on the Porsche. When I was 6 we moved to the north bay area where I would stay until I was 22.
At age 4, my dad bought me a kidkart that was eligible for local club races. From then, I would do laps with cones we would set up in parking lots. We got kicked out of most places we went to, but it was enough seat time for me to acquire good fundamental driving skills. After a few races in the kid kart, we were able to gain support from California Kartworld and Sweedtech, boosting my karting career and making me a full-time kart racer in the Blue Max Kart Championship and a major contender in multiple IKF races.
At the end of my career, I had 44 starts with 37 podiums and 10 wins in the 80cc Jr 1 class. When I was 13, I decided to step back from racing and focus on my second passion, basketball. Basketball had a much more promising future for me at the time. It was a lot less time-consuming compared to racing and gave me time to stay home and focus on academics. Another big factor for this decision was my height. By age 12 I was nearly six feet tall, making it hard for me to fit in the karts for that age group. Although I had put my racing career on hold, I never lost my passion for sports cars and racing.
My dream of becoming a basketball star didn’t work out due to an injury in my sophomore year of high school. Throughout middle school and high school, I became obsessed with the BMW 3 series. When I was 15, I started working to save up and buy my first car, a titanium silver BMW e36 M3 (it was nearly two years before I was allowed to drive the car on my own.) Once I got my license, the pure joy of driving that car reignited the burning passion I’d had karting and the passion that brings me here today. I would spend many hours driving the amazing California backroads and cruising around with friends. This was also around the time I started sim racing, which was a key factor that pushed me to pursue racing and motorsports as a career.
The bug to drive on track grew immensely. Between driving backroads and the sim, I almost couldn’t take it anymore, I needed to get on track. When I was 19, I built an E36 drift car and started going to local events at Sonoma Raceway and Thunderhill. I did this for two years, but to put it simply, it was not what I’m passionate about…and it was not racing to me. Drifting is a budget-friendly way to get on track and a great way to learn car control, but I wanted to compete. During this time, I was introduced to my first career opportunity within motorsports.
Just after my 20th birthday, I found my first door into racing through a vintage Trans Am shop at Sonoma Raceway. I was one of two mechanics maintaining and prepping almost 60 historic race cars, SCCA cars, and SPEC Miatas. Although I was working on race cars, I never got to go with them to the track…and that bothered me. I would mention my goal of becoming a pro driver and how I wanted to get involved in pro racing. They were quick to shoot down these ideas by telling me it was too late to become a driver, and I needed to have connections to be involved in pro racing. After working this job for a year, I knew it was time to move on. I decided once again to take a step back from motorsports and started selling BMWs with my roommate.
After a few months of flipping cars, I was bored out of my mind and very eager to get back into racing. I was at Sonoma Raceway spectating at a GT World Challenge race when I first ran into Black Sheep Racing. I was obsessing over their three Porsche 991.2 GT3 cup cars; they had the doors off of one car and it was a glimpse into what I wanted my office to look like. They were running in the Porsche Sprint Challenge, which was the support series for that race weekend. Originally, I only spoke to a tire guy and was mainly focused on the cars, and how beautiful they are. I had no idea who Black Sheep was or where they were from, but they inspired me.
I wrote the name Black Sheep on my whiteboard at home to remind myself to do some research and possibly find myself a job or even a drive with them. A few weeks passed by and I saw a Cayman Clubsport outside of a shop down the street from my apartment. Sure enough, it was Black Sheep Racing’s headquarters. Life really does work in mysterious ways, I had to pull over and shoot my shot.
The Black Sheep crew chief, who is also the in-house mechanic, was very hesitant to talk to me at first. I think he could see how starstruck I was from seeing the cars and eased up a bit. We were talking for a while when the team owner pulled up. She mentioned that they needed help with track support for some SPEC Boxster events. I begged them for the opportunity, and they gave it to me! They were overjoyed with my performance and offered me a spot as a car chief and wanted me to travel with them for the remaining Porsche Sprint Challenge events. I gladly accepted this offer.
Before this opportunity, I had never seen a racetrack outside of California, so this was huge for me. I couldn’t sleep for the whole week leading up to my first trip, Road America. Arriving at Road America felt like a dream. Every track has a unique feeling, and to this day, Road America is one of the most powerful feelings to me. It was so cool to finally be a part of a professional-style team. This was one of the proudest moments of my life, I felt so close to my dream.
During my time with Black Sheep, I ran a Porsche Boxster, a Cayman GT4 Clubsport, and was a car chief on a 991 cup car for two Porsche Sprint Challenge races. The last race I did with them was at Indy, where I met PT Autosport for the first time. I saw their car rolling down pit lane with “Aspiring Drivers Wanted” on the side and had to learn more. I found the car on the pre-grid before a race when I met Alex and Jeph. I applied for the 2023 Shootout that night.
Even though I loved working with Black Sheep, it wasn’t enough to be a full-time job. I was hungry to network, meet new people and increase my involvement in racing. Three days after my trip to Indy, I packed up and moved away from my hometown to be in the tropical weather of Miami, Florida, a very spontaneous and risky move. I didn’t know anyone who lived there and had zero job offers there, but it was an exciting fresh start with promising potential opportunities.
I spent the first month calling local race teams in search of a job. With no luck, I had given up on finding a job in motorsports. I was on my way to an interview with Amazon when I saw a shop with Porsches, lots of Porsches. Once again, I had to pull over and shoot my shot. I told them I needed a job and mentioned my passion for motorsports. They were close friends with Marvin Gilbert, the owner of MGM which is another team in the Porsche Sprint Challenge paddock. They gave me his contact information and the next week I started working for MGM full-time. At MGM I was able to work on air-cooled 911s and familiarize myself with 911 cup cars. I also traveled to all of the Porsche Sprint Challenge races and tests.
My time with MGM proved that the move to Miami was the right choice. I wanted to go to a new place that forced me to get out of my comfort zone and meet new people, and I did just that. One of the drivers at MGM introduced me to the owner of KSF, a kart team at AMR Homestead. He has become a good friend and helped get me back into karting which was very important to me. Through connections I’ve made living in Miami, I have had the opportunity to get my racing license, drive multiple SCCA races, and even drive a stock car around the Circuit of the Americas.
As my involvement within motorsports has increased, so has my interest in driver coaching, data, and engineering. I’ve met many successful drivers with a similar background to mine, and the majority of them got their first opportunity to become a pro driver through coaching. As I began my research into what it takes to become a driver coach, I discovered a new skill that I did not yet have – data acquisition and knowing what to do with it. While working at MGM, I would pay close attention to the data engineer and stay after hours to try and absorb all the information I could. Although I wasn’t able to gain much hands-on experience, I was amazed by the amount of information modern race cars provide and the ways you can manipulate that data into faster lap times.
Although I wasn’t the right fit for the PT Autosport Aspiring Driver Shootout, I maintained contact with them, and they invited me to New Jersey Motorsports Park for a test day in a SPEC Boxster. We had the chance to learn more about each other throughout the day and it became apparent that I was a good candidate for a new program that was geared to help young motorsports mechanics, business professionals, and engineers. I would like to eventually fall into all three of these categories, so I was on board from the start. After months of discussion and planning, it was decided that I’d join the team at the beginning of 2024.
So where do I want to go with my career? I currently travel with JDX Racing as a data acquisition engineer in Porsche Carrera Cup North America as well as Porsche Sprint Challenge. I have learned so much working at JDX, I’m really enjoying my engineering journey thus far. The nights are late and the mornings are early, it is not for everybody, but I love it. I can not thank PT Autosport enough for this opportunity. Everyone should have an opportunity to pursue their passion in motorsports, and it’s companies like PT Autosport that make it possible. I have many goals, my biggest is to become a factory driver for an OEM. In my dream world I would do both– drive and engineer. For now, I’m interested in learning as much as I can, gaining experience, building contacts, and becoming a valuable motorsports mind. I believe the next step for me is to gain enough funding for an entire season of racing in a single make series or a GT4 series like WRL or even GT4 America. Also, I want to continue learning from the amazing engineers at JDX and expanding my engineering knowledge.
I will leave you with this; you miss every shot you don’t take – even Steph Curry only makes 50 percent of his shots. I would not be where I am today without taking calculated risks (some maybe not so calculated) and pushing myself beyond my comfort zone. I am by no means incredibly successful or have “made it,” but it is the ‘shooters shoot’ mindset combined with hard work that will set me up for success.
