Whatever happened to ... the Great Bridge grad who made name for himself in NASCAR?

You can still find Elton Sawyer around a NASCAR track on Sundays. These days, the Great Bridge High grad is behind the scenes instead of the wheel.

Sawyer, who turns 49 in a couple of weeks, is competition director for Red Bull Racing's two Sprint Cup Toyotas. That means he goes to every event and makes sure that the racing teams - with car 83 driven by Brian Vickers and 84 driven by Scott Speed - are ready and coordinated for each race.

The pit crews are his responsibility, and so is transportation between venues.

Sawyer said he wasn't aware that sheet metal on the 83 car had been dipped in acid to save weight. NASCAR last week penalized Vickers and suspended and fined his crew chief for the infraction after a random inspection.

Sawyer, at Atlanta preparing for Sunday's race, said the team investigated the charges and "made the correct changes in personnel that made that decision and we'll move forward."

The Red Bull operation started in 2006, and Sawyer was one of the first hires.

"I had a clean sheet of paper," he said. "When I came on, they had a building but didn't even have tool boxes."

It's a job he loves and one his experience in the pits has led him to, he said.

When Sawyer was in high school, he was a standout in what he calls "ball-and-stick" sports. About junior year, he started crewing for his father, a Langley Raceway star. By senior year, young Sawyer was building his own reputation at regional tracks.

He won three consecutive Langley titles from 1983 to 1985, then went national on what was then the NASCAR Busch Series, now called Nationwide.

In 20 years, Sawyer ran 392 Busch Series races, with two wins, 51 top five and 131 top 10 finishes. He made it to NASCAR's top tier, with 29 Winston Cup, now known as Sprint Cup, races in 1995 and 1996.

Sawyer met his wife at the track. Patty Moise also raced, and the two drivers often competed against each other.

"The best thing I have ever done in my life is getting married to Patty," he said.

They have no children, but they have three horses, three dogs, three cats and a pigeon at their home near Winston-Salem, N.C.

Sawyer said he tries to visit his mother in Chesapeake and his father in Elizabeth City, N.C., whenever the team races at Martinsville or Richmond.

Next week, he'll be in Texas, then Phoenix. The series ends in Homestead, Fla., on Nov. 16.

There's no chance he'll race again, Sawyer said.

"I had a great career," he said. "I would have liked to have won more races, led more laps. But this is another chapter in my life."

Tony Germanotta, (757) 222-5113, tony.germanotta@pilotonline.com