Joe Gibbs Racing, based in North Carolina, has undoubtedly been one of the most successful organizations in recent NASCAR history, racking up a total of five NASCAR Cup Series championships since 2000.

What goes into a race team ultimately being successful?

Extraordinary drivers like Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, who are just two of the many talented JGR athletes, certainly help. But tireless work behind the scenes from engineers and countless others is critical and essential when it comes to thriving on the track.

One of those pivotal JGR engineers is 34-year-old Jaik Halpainy, an area native who graduated from Panama Central School.

When the Daytona 500 kicks off another NASCAR Cup Series season on Feb. 14, Halpainy will be one of the lead engineers for Busch’s No. 18 team. The team as a collective whole will look to continue the impressive run of prosperity for JGR.

Being an engineer for one of the most prestigious race organizations in NASCAR is just the latest step in the remarkable journey of Halpainy, who has always had a strong interest in racing and working on automobiles.

“My dad (and grandpa) raced for a long time,” Halpainy explained. “I was always interested. I always went every single weekend and spent time at the track. … It has been around me my whole life. It is kind of something I’ve always done. Probably when I was about 15, I really took a (serious) interest in it. I was doing really well in math classes and stuff like that. I had a strong interest in science. It just seemed to kind of be a home run (for me). … It went from something that was fun to something that kept me occupied to a strong degree.”

Halpainy graduated from Penn State Behrend with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering technology. He gained valuable engineering experience working for Tobber Racing in Warren County, Pennsylvania, and as a design engineer at Spartan Tool in Sinclairville.

“I got to work with awesome guys,” he stressed. “That was probably more of what prepared me for the real world than anything. … They expected a lot out of you … but they were all very good, loving people. … It really helped me grow and be a better person and an engineer there.”

Following his time at Spartan Tool, Halpainy got his first big break in 2012, when he became an engineer for Turner Scotts Motorsports in Mooresville, North Carolina.

His responsibilities there included operating as a race engineer for Turner Scotts Motorsports’ Camping World Truck Series teams. He also had the chance to work a part-time NASCAR Nationwide series schedule. The Nationwide series is now known as the Xfinity series.

Halpainy was quick to credit a longtime friend and another area native, Jeff Galati, for his opportunity at Turner Scott Motorsports.

“He ended up being down there and he went through the ringer of the NASCAR world and worked his way up,” Halpainy said of Galati. “He got to Turner (Scott Motorsports) and he was pretty well-respected there. I went down and hung out with Jeff and (his wife) Lydia for two or three days and handed out resumes to (anyone) I could find. I ended up getting into Turner’s. I interviewed a couple times. … For me to go down there, it just had to be the right fit. And I got a phone call and we talked and I talked to a crew chief, Mike Hillman Jr. … We had a good chat and the next day I received an email with a job offer.”

After he got his foot in the door, Halapiny’s next stop came in 2014 as a shop engineer for Michael Waltrip Racing, where his tasks included pulldowns, build sheets, data acquisition, pre and post event analysis and simulation/kinematic prep work.

For the past five years, Halpainy has called JGR home.

“I’ve worked with tons of drivers now,” he emphasized. “At (Michael Waltrip Racing) I got to work with Michael Waltrip, Brian Vickers, I got to work with Brett Moffitt. … The transition to Gibbs was nice because of a lot of the same tools, a lot of the same outputs and handlings, and people made it really easy. When I got there, I started as basically the seventh engineer. I was the fill in. I was the guy who tried to make everybody’s day run smoother. I did data systems again and I ran pulldowns and I tried to do anything and everything to make the race engineers lives a little simpler and a little less hectic.”

Halpainy continued: “By the end of my first year I was on the No. 18 Xfinity (series) car with primarily Kyle Busch and Matt Tifft. By 2017, I was the lead race engineer on the No. 19 Xfinity (series) car with Matt Tifft. … Then in 2018, I moved up to the (NASCAR) cup shop to work on the No. 20 car with Erik Jones and I had been with him for the last three years and this year I will be with Kyle Busch on the No. 18 car. … There is a lot of preparation that goes into the season. You do all of that work and the best part of our job is the week to week. It is an occupation where you can do all of your tasks and you literally see the result on day seven. Getting back to the season to start and getting back in that rhythm, it’s very addicting.”

Throughout his journey, Halpainy often thinks of home. And he is reminded of home frequently. All he has to do is look under the hood of his team’s new race haulers. Interestingly enough, the Cummins engine is stamped with, “made in Jamestown, NY.”

“Cummins is five minutes from my house where I grew up,” Halpainy emphasized. “You pop the hood and you look underneath and it’s like, ‘Holy cow.’ … Those little reminders, they make you reminisce a little bit and every time you see something like that it reminds you of home, it reminds you of Stateline (Speedway), it reminds you of all the people who have helped you get to where you are.”