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“We worked on weekends and everything else while they were racing or testing, trying to get cars done,” said Little. “It was hard and it was a lot of work. I think we had five or six of us in the fab shop. David Munari was next door, and he did paint work and that type of stuff, and he only had a couple of guys working with him. We worked a lot of hours.”

After a few months with the team, Little was appointed manager of the team’s fab shop and its band of dedicated warriors that worked under his direction.

As one of Team Penske’s first NASCAR employees, David Little (right) has celebrated the team’s success over the years.

“Everybody has got their part that they have to do to make the whole team work,” said Little. “And our responsibilities were to make sure that the cars were ready to go to Munari to get painted. We built the cars, put them together and we wired them, so we had a lot of work to do. We didn’t have all the people that we do have now.”

During Little’s early days with Team Penske, the team worked out of a small shop in Lakeside Business Park in Mooresville. Soon the operation expanded and moved into its current 400,000 square foot facility. In addition to his other duties, Little was also asked to help design the look and functionality of the fabrication departments inside the new facility.  

“If I’m not mistaken, when it was done, (the Team Penske shop) was the largest tile job in the state of North Carolina at the time with like 250,000 square feet of tile,” said Little. “Amazing.”

He noted that another remarkable part of the team is the number of long-term employees that have worked with Team Penske for 30 years or more. In an industry that typically has high turnover, Little said he has always been impressed by the how the team has maintained its workforce and helped its people grow within their roles during their careers.

More than 30 years after joining Team Penske, David Little continues to be an important part of the organization.

“I’ve been at other teams and a lot of people say the ‘grass is greener’ but that’s not always true,” said Little, who currently serves as Team Penske’s equipment and assets coordinator. “To me you couldn’t ask for a better place to work. I have worked for some teams before where you didn’t even get any insurance, so (at Team Penske) you come to a team where you get insurance, 401(k) plans and a lot more. Anything you need, you can get. Why would you want to leave? I couldn’t think of another place I’d want to go.”

Little feels the success of the team and the dedication of its people all back to one man – Roger Penske. When his family was racing in the 1970s, Little remembers seeing Penske and he met him for the first time soon after he joined the team full-time.

“I was very impressed by his professionalism and just the way he went about things,” said Little. “I had seen him at the racetrack before in the 70s when we had our car. Everything they always did was first-class. I mean the cars looked nice and the people looked nice – it was just a first-class operation. He’s been extremely good to me. You just couldn’t ask for a better place to work or a better person to work for.”