In 1998, he loaded up a truck and trailer and moved from then IHRA headquarters in Bristol, Tennessee to Ohio. While the IHRA isn’t running a professional division at the moment, Baker talked about the growth of the organization from 20 years ago. “I remember when were located in Bristol, we had a single division with one team finals,” Baker said. “Last year we produced seven team finals across six regional divisions. None of this growth would have been possible without the continued support by the division directors along with the officials in each region as well as our member tracks. “Additionally we have been fortunate to have a great partner in Summit Racing Equipment. Summit has been involved in our racing programs in some form or another as long I have been employed with IHRA.” Baker was named the Director of Competition and Technical Services and seven years later, he took over his current position. He feels fortunate to have a career in motorsports that has provided him the opportunity to travel the world and meet great people in all facets of the motorsports industry. But, he’s proud of the work with the grassroots programs. The joint partnership with Summit and the IHRA produced the Summit SuperSeries, now in its 17th season. It was the first program to decide a true bracket champion based upon local competition at IHRA member tracks. Now, the IHRA has introduced the Summit Sportsman Spectacular with 20 bracket races over 10 double-race weekends. “It is an exciting time in the IHRA office. We have worked diligently to design a series that is affordable and fun for the participants,” Baker said. “The new series is focused on providing an additional value for being a Summit Super Series member. We designed the schedule geographically to provide our local members who generally only participate at one facility to have an additional option to compete against other Super Series competitors regionally.” 5