By Christine Valdez
Web Production Assistant

For Manasquan native Ryan Flores, motorsports have always been a part of his life. Despite growing up near the Jersey Shore, Flores mostly spent his time near a race track, whether he was on the track or not.

As a young child, Flores was first exposed to racing by his father, who raced BMX. Flores’ father had been ranked number one in the state during the time he had spent racing. After some time in BMX, Flores’ father had made the transition to dirt bikes and even raced in Englishtown.

While his father had been racing on bikes, Flores picked up racing in cars — where at the age of 5 he began to race in quarter midgets around the state. As Flores gained more experience, he later made the transition over to four cylinder street stocks, legend cars and Bandoleros.

Flores continued racing and got the opportunity to participate in the Turkey Derby at Wall Stadium racing modified stock cars in 2008. Many enter to participate in the Turkey Derby and Flores remembers how participants would be sent home after qualifying races, before the main event.

As the Turkey Derby went on, Flores made it to the main event — winning his qualifying race on the first night and eventually sweeping the entire event.

“Wall Stadium’s biggest race is called the Turkey Derby and I swept that one year and that was one of the biggest wins of my career, if not the biggest,” said Flores.

When Flores was off the track, he said he would spend time working at a local junk yard, owned by the Blewetts, another racing family in New Jersey. Flores said that he was a teen when he started working with them.

“I just kind of had an opportunity when I was 14, 15 years old and started working for one of the best racing families in New Jersey — the Blewetts,” said Flores. “They had a junk yard and I started working for them and kind of stayed there a lot and almost living there half of the time.”

Flores recalls that time as a cool part of his experience in motorsports while growing up in the state. He says that many don’t associate NASCAR with New Jersey.

After experiencing the world of motorsports on the racetrack, Flores decided to go the route of still remaining on the track — just behind the wall. As he worked with the Blewetts in their yard, Flores decided to pack up and move south. At the age of 19, Flores moved to Charlotte to chase his goal of working with a team.

Upon arriving in Charlotte, Flores got a job with Roush Fenway Racing, with several teams within the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

“I moved to Charlotte to work for a NASCAR team,” he said. “I kind of had a goal in mind of working for a team. I wanted to work on a cup team by the time I was 25. When I moved here, I was 19.”

Flores says he went into the team at Roush Fenway Racing as an entry level fabricator and as time went by, he became a very advanced one.

“I could weld and do everything. I learned a lot of mechanics as far as setting the cars up on the cup level,” Flores said.

During his stint with Roush, Flores said that he was able to learn what it takes to be part of a NASCAR pit crew from coworkers at the shop. During their lunch breaks, they would teach themselves how to change tires, carry tires and be the jack man. He says that everyone would pick a position that they wanted to try out. Flores says he focused on learning to become a tire changer.

While there is a school in the area that teaches the techniques required of a pit crew, Flores says that he worked hard at it until an opportunity to join a pit crew was available. He says that he was fortunate enough to have a place to pick up the air gun and practice at Roush.

After a four-year stint at Roush Fenway, Flores went to work with another NASCAR Cup team — Stewart-Haas Racing. At first he joined Stewart-Haas as a developmental pit crew member and eventually made his way up to the No. 14 pit crew for Cup Series driver and team co-owner Tony Stewart.

Along the way, Flores got to experience the championship hunt with the No. 14 team in 2011, when Stewart was in contention for the Sprint Cup championship. Stewart eventually won it in one of the closest championship battles in NASCAR. Flores remained with the team until 2014, when he moved to Team Penske.

To this day, Flores remains with Team Penske working not only within the Cup Series as a tire changer for Joey Logano on the No. 22 team, but also the team’s Xfinity Series entry. With Team Penske, Flores has had the opportunity to work with several race teams under the organization.

When the 2014 season concluded, Flores went back to the track but this time returned to his roots in New Jersey. During the off season, Flores competed in three quarter midgets races throughout the state. In his first race back in New Jersey, Flores competed in the Battle of Trenton — which also happened to be his three quarter midgets debut.

Having not raced at all in 2014, Flores showed up at the Battle of Trenton. During the first night of the event, Flores says that he finished ninth after some problems with the car. After some adjustments, he returned the second night and competed in the main event. Despite of the results of the first night and not having raced all year, Flores came back and surprised the field by finishing second.

“I think we kind of surprised everybody. We finished second after getting spun out early. Came back from last, so that kind of opened everybody’s eyes up,” he said.

After the Battle of Trenton, Flores went on to compete in Atlantic City for the Len Sammons Motorsports Productions NAPA Know How Weekend three quarter midgets race — in a race where approximately 100 cars had signed up and 76 were eliminated before the main event.

Throughout both nights, Flores captured two second place finishes, which he describes as a success.

“It was our worst finish and we finished second the second night. You know, to be that good is definitely a huge success,” he said.

Before he was able to go back out and compete again, Flores had to get clearance from Team Penske.

“It’s just like going skiing or anything like that,” Flores said. “They’re not going to tell you not to do it but they just tell you to be safe and let you know that you have a responsibility and that they need you.”

After racing a few events back at home, Flores went on to prepare for the 2015 NASCAR season — putting any races for him on hold. Prior to the season opening race, Flores wanted to put all of his focus on the Daytona 500.

Going into the 2015 season — Flores’ ninth NASCAR season — he expects to be able to accomplish plenty with Team Penske. He says that he wants to be able to help the team achieve another Xfinity Series owner’s championship and be able to win another Sprint Cup championship with the organization.

“Our company is structured to win a championship and anything less than that I think is, I wouldn’t say failure, but anything less than that is a let down,” Flores said.

With racing experience since his childhood and nine seasons in NASCAR, Flores says that he is proud of his efforts.

“To be able to be successful on almost every level of this sport means a lot to me,” he said. “It’s a lot of hard work that has gone into it.”