Today we’d like to introduce you to Darin George.
Darin, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I moved to Texas to work at MER (Motorsport Enterprises Racing) in 2007, knowing very little about race cars and even less about business. I worked there as the lead mechanic for five years and we won three national championships in MX5 Cup. When business slowed down I went back to work for Mercedes and thought I was out of the racing industry but it didn’t last long. I got an offer to work full time for a pro race team in North Carolina so I moved up there and was back in it.
When I moved back to Texas, the previous owner of MER called me and said I shouldn’t go work anywhere else, he had a proposition for me. I came back in late 2013 and took over the shop in November 2014 with my girlfriend Jacqui. We had a truck, a trailer, a credit card and couple good customers and managed to make it work. We took it from a $200k/year shop to just over $800k by 2016 and are currently building a new 20,000 square foot shop. MER started as a Mazda MX5 race shop exclusively and while we haven’t forgotten that, we currently build and maintain race cars of all types along with doing engine swaps and helping enthusiasts get up to speed and on track. I like to work with individual clients to ascertain their goals and help them get faster and expand their knowledge of both cars and car control in a safe environment.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The road here has definitely had a few bumps. Cashflow being the biggest one, we had a few times we had to juggle credit card balances and really figure out what HAD to be ordered vs what we wanted to order. Our philosophy of “keeping the customer on track is the first priority” kept us going and kept work coming in. The next hurdle was figuring out how to run a business, I’m not sure if I’ve really figured it out yet but I’m still working on it. I’ve gotten to learn about politics, taxes, human resources and a whole slew of other things that I would never have imagined a few years ago.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Motorsport Enterprises Racing – what should we know?
We are a race car prep and fabrication shop. We specialize in Mazda road race cars but have started branching out into Porsches and Corvettes. We provide race car setups with the highest attention to detail, along with suspension installs, big brake kits, exhaust systems, and pretty much any part to make your car faster, handle better and be more reliable. We also do full car builds from scratch, where we take a regular street car, strip it to bare metal, design and weld in a roll cage, paint it, build a custom wiring harness and add any extras the owner would like; custom aerodynamic devices, engine swaps, turbochargers, superchargers, custom suspension, and dyno tuning on our in-house dyno. Most of our cars get raced on a regular basis and we constantly use the feedback from our clients to make our work and products better.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My girlfriend Jacqui was invaluable in getting the shop going. I drug her into it and she ran the front end, figured out accounting software, banking software, inventory software and generally figured out what needed to be done and then did it. She made a lot of sacrifices for me and I’ll never be able to repay her properly. My parents were also a huge help and have always been there for me. In truth I need to thank everyone that worked for me, we work as a team and we all work equally hard.
Pricing:
- Mechanical work: $110/hr
- Fabrication work: $75/hr
Contact Info:
- Address: 9101 E Hwy 377
Cresson TX, 76035 - Website: http://goteammer.com/
- Phone: 817-396-4831
- Email: dgeorge.mer@gmail.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoTeamMER/
Image Credit:
Jacqui West
Linda Dunlap
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