Dartmouth native Thomas Ellis in fast lane as car chief for Team Penske on the Xfinity Series

Thomas Ellis is used to traveling for business.

But even when he gets to work, there’s plenty of driving to be done.

The 33-year-old Dartmouth native will travel from North Carolina to spend this weekend in New Hampshire. He’s a car chief for Team Penske’s No. 12 Ford Mustang, which will be driven by Paul Menard in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series’ ROXOR 200.

Ellis is in his second year working on the Xfinity Series, one step below the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup and one rung up from the Gander Outdoors Truck Series, where he spent 13 years.

His journey began at his grandfather’s repair shop in New Bedford. When he turned 14, Ellis became a third-generation racer at Seekonk Motor Speedway, following his father, Lenny Ellis Jr., a two-time Pro Stock champion, and his grandfather, Lenny Ellis Sr.

“That’s what I did every Saturday night as a kid,” Thomas said. “I still remember my first time going out through the tunnel and onto the race track.”

Ellis raced there until age 18 — he missed out on Rookie of the Year honors by a single point — but he always knew racing wasn’t his future.

“I understood that I was going to be a better mechanic than a race car driver,” he said. “I enjoyed racing. I just knew that it was going to be a hobby and not a lifestyle."

But he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be a mechanic. He enrolled at Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech in the architectural engineering shop.

“I honestly didn’t want to work on cars so I went to school to become an architect,” he said. “The awesome part of a vocational school, I went out on co-op and realized sitting behind a computer all day long wasn’t me.”

After graduating in 2004, he was at a crossroads. He considered going to college or working for his dad, but instead he decided to pack up his things and move to North Carolina, the center of the auto racing world.

“I knew I wanted to try working in NASCAR,” he said.

It was December 2004 and he crashed on a friend’s floor and passed out resumes with fervor. He soon landed a job at Fast Track Driving School, run by Andy Hillenburg.

“The good thing about that job was you did it all,” he said.

Two years later, he got a job on the Truck Series for MRD Motor Sports’ No. 6 truck, which soon became the No. 8, most regularly driven by Chad McCumbee. Ellis quickly rose the ranks and at the tender age of 20 was promoted to truck chief — the equivalent of car chief — which meant he was in more of a management role than on the pit crew.

As Ellis explains the hierarchy, “There’s a crew chief who is top of the race team, and right below him is an engineer and car chief, but back then we didn’t have an engineer. So the crew chief would come up with the plan and car chief made sure it was implemented.”

Being elevated so quickly took him by surprise.

“I didn’t even know if I had an option,” he said. “I was just told I was going to do it. The spot became available and the crew chief said, ‘You’ll be my truck chief.’”

That meant “a lot of things, mainly responsibility,” he said. “You take a 20-year-old kid and all of a sudden he’s partially in charge of a multi-million business rolling up and down the road. You age really quick.”

When MRD Motor Sports shut down, Ellis landed at Turner Motor Sports, with Ricky Carmichael on the then-named Camping World Truck Series. He had risen from a four-truck team to one with more than 40 vehicles in the building.

“You go from having to do all of it yourself with a small amount of guys to having resources,” he said. “Instead of building one part, you’re building 10 parts.”

After three years, Ellis moved on to Brad Keselowski’s truck team, working with drivers Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric. When that racing team shuttered, Ellis found himself at Team Penske. His first season he served as car chief on the No. 22 car on the Xfinity circuit, most often driven by Cindric. They won six times.

“It was pretty cool,” Ellis said of the first Xfinity victory he had a hand in. “I remember sitting there thinking about how it was cool to win, but that’s also your job. As cool as it was, it’s also the end goal.”

This season, Ellis is the car chief for the No. 12, which is driving in eight races featuring a rotation of four drivers: Keselowski, Menard, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.

“Understanding each driver’s communication to the team (is key),” Ellis said when asked about the challenge of working with a different driver each week. “When you get done with practice, is what they’re asking for really what they want on race day? That’s probably the toughest part of having four different drivers, learning what their tendencies are.”

Ellis still lives in North Carolina, with his girlfriend in Mooresville, less than an hour north of Charlotte. He makes it back to the New Bedford area a couple of times a year, always making sure to eat at Sweet Ginger in Fairhaven, and a bunch of his family and several friends will be heading up to Loudon this weekend.

What they’ll see is Ellis on one of his easiest days of the week.

“If everything goes smooth, race day is really simple,” he said. “My job is to make sure the car is prepared exactly how we want it and to get it through tech. During the race, I pretty much stay behind the wall, making sure everything is flowing right.”

His goal 15 years ago was to work in NASCAR, and Ellis does. When asked if he hopes to eventually work on the Monster Energy circuit, he gets diplomatic.

“I’d just love to still be here at Penske racing,” he said. “Wherever the path takes me, wherever the runway allows me to go within the company, I’m happy with that.”

But for a moment he does allow himself a little dreaming.

“I don’t have any inspiration to be a crew chief, but a mechanic or a car chief at that level? Maybe.”

When he thinks of the future, it’s hard not to recall the past and the tough decision he made to move to North Carolina with no job or home, simply a plan and a surplus of desire.

“The main motivation was just wanting to make it,” he said. “I can remember countless times if you struggled, the motivation was not wanting to come back home and say you didn’t make it.

“I can remember some people thinking I wasn’t going to make it. They said, ‘You can’t make a living out of racing.’ I was bound and determined to prove them wrong.”