Cooper King was an Iowa high school track star. Now, he’s winning a different race on the IndyCar circuit

For Cooper King, racing runs in his DNA.

From helping out at his father’s tire shop on Locust Street and holding a metro track title for Des Moines Technical High School, now known as DMPS Central Campus, to driving for Skip Barber Racing School and working as a shock technician and engineer at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, he knows a thing or two about the recipe for success — or rather, speed.

King, 62, has brought it to the Iowa Speedway this weekend.

The soft-spoken Oskaloosa-born engineer’s love affair with racing began before he was even born.

After hitchhiking to Sebring, Florida on a December day in 1959 to see the first-ever U.S. Grand Prix, King’s father, Jack King, returned home to the news that his girlfriend was pregnant. He named the baby after Jack Brabham’s championship-winning Cooper T51, a classic pill-shaped car resembling a children’s wooden toy.

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King credits his father, who owned Piccadilly Spoke and Tread, a tire shop in downtown Des Moines and the only Pirelli dealership in town at the time, for passing on the turbo trait.

Since King’s father died from Parkinson’s Disease in 2022, he's carried his father with him to each race. From the Streets of St. Petersburg to the Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca, King plans to bring his father’s urn along for the ride that is the 2023 IndyCar season.

While attending Northeast Missouri State University on a track scholarship, a twisted left knee made the star runner quit school and commit to a career in the pit lane.

Since 1982, King has done everything from sitting behind the wheel to captaining the garages. His brief career as a racer has been invaluable for communicating the physical impact of data.

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“As a driver, you have to know what [it] feels like, so it’s not just slashes and zeroes,” King said. “It’s based sometimes on what is felt.”

As the shock technician, King will monitor and work out any kinks on the shocks of Christian Lundgaard’s green No. 45 car this weekend in Newton.

When he’s not traveling with IndyCar, King works with sports cars, shifting between mechanic, crew chief and race engineer.

Despite the fanfare, world-famous headliners and being one of the most competitive racing series, the leap from working for his first karting team to IndyCar isn’t that different for King.

“It’s racing 101,” King said. “The same mindset carries over.”

Returning to Iowa has always been special for King, but with the team’s sponsorship with Hy-Vee, he is able to bring a slice of Iowa across the nation with him.

As kart racers, King and his friends would pitch racing sponsorships to hometown giants like Hy-Vee, Dahls and Ruan. Four decades later, King works in one of the most competitive racing series in the world with Hy-Vee’s logo stamped across his chest.

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While there is one driver in the car, racing is a team sport. Rushing from one end of the garages to the other, shuffling in and out of trailers and huddling over computer screens, each crew member has their own specialty.

For King, sliding open a tool drawer reveals just how specific those roles can be. The smallest and most overlooked of car parts — nuts barely larger than a fingernail — are vital parts to ensure their driver crosses the checkered flag first.

Switching the shocks from those suited for a street course to the short oval shocks necessary at a track like the Iowa Speedway means long hours and a short turnaround with only a week between races. Typically, making the transition from one shock style to the other would take three days; King did it in a day and a half.

When a driver can spray champagne from a podium step, it makes all that hard work so much sweeter. Christian Lundgaard’s maiden win in Toronto last Sunday trickled down to the entire team.

“It just shows that the support and the hard work that we’re putting in is now paying off,“ Lundgaard said trackside from Pole Position Raceway in Grimes on Wednesday.

As the doubleheader approaches this weekend, expectations are high for the Danish driver.

“[Our expectations are] to win,“ King said.

Lundgaard won the pitstop challenge on Free Family Friday, securing a $20,000 bonus for the team. King was the first to rush over to the cockpit as the driver won the competition.

As the weekend unfolds, King’s team and his family will surround him, spending time with his sister and brother on Saturday.

As per usual, he will carry his father along for yet another race.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Oskaloosa-born engineer returns to Iowa with IndyCar team