Charlie Langenstein

With over 30 years experience in the Motorsports industry, Charlie Langenstein is a very well known and respected name throughout the racing circles, worldwide.
 
With well over 250 feature wins and countless track and series championships in the Northeast Dirt modified ranks. Charlie is destined to someday be added into the Dirt Motorsports Hall of Fame. Championship caliber drivers such as Larry Voss, Jimmy Horton, Brett Hearn, the legendary Will Cagle and Kenny Brightbill just to name a few have benefited in the unique way that Charlie maintains and preps a race car for competition.

At a very young age Charlie was taught by Delaware racer Walt Breeding (a successful race car driver and car builder in his own right) on the fabrication and design of race car engineering.

From the go-kart racing industry to the famed Indy car and NASCAR racing series and all racing divisions in between, Charlie has left his mark.

At the age of 19 while still attending high school, Charlie was able to take the entire month of May off from his school work to work for Danville, Illinois Indy car driver Larry “Boom Boom” Cannon at the famed brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 1980 Indy 500. While the team was lacking the major funding it took to be a threat for the win, they were able to qualify 14th fastest for the 500. Unfortunately the race team had engine woes that resulted in a 33rd place finished. After graduation from high school Charlie remained a vital part of Cannon’s Indy car Team for 2 more years!
Through out the years Charlie continued to hone his racing skills and worked under some of the best in the business with a goal to someday set his own mark in the sport.
 
With this being said Charlie, a self taught race car engineer has successfully designed and built many race car components and race car chassis designs to set the bench mark in Motorsports today. In 1997 Charlie designed and built a NASCAR (then Winston Cup) chassis for Petty Enterprises in Level Cross, North Carolina with driver Bobby Hamilton that won in its 3rd time on the race track at the famed Rockingham Motor Speedway in Rockingham, N.C. in the fall race in 1997.

Charlie’s ideas and business plans were also successful in building “production line” fleets of race cars for the race car driving school industry and for entertainment in the “show car” markets world wide. He was instrumental in working with famed race engineer, car builder and race car driver, Mark Alderson of Brownsburg, Indiana in the development of an all steel frame monococ Indy car chassis for the race car driving industry. They also together designed the worlds first 2 seater Indy car for the Motorsports and entertainment industry. This idea was also copied by many Championship Indy car teams and race car manufactures which today is very instrumental in race car driving training and public relations projects and movie production industry as well.

Charlie not known for letting much grass grow under his feet has also been successful as a race team crew chief, team manager,  driver development programs, race car engineering,preparation,set-up,fabrication,design,& public relations.
Charlie’s newest baby is his PPE corp. (Performance Products Endorsements).
Charlie works closely with many Motorsports and high performance and product manufactures to help promote, test, and evaluate and market new ideas and racing concepts to the Motorsports industry.
 
Charlie has been in involved in the NASCAR Busch (now Nationwide Series) and Sprint (Winston Cup /Nextel) Cup Series for the past 20 years. He has won the 1989 Busch Grand National Championship and 1990 Rookie of the year in Winston Cup with driver the late Rob Moroso.

Since 2000 Charlie has worked for Hendrick Motorsports starting with the 25 cars and driver Jerry Nadeau. Since 2002 Charlie has worked for the Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.
While Charlie maintains his highest priority and full time commitment as the mechanical supervisor for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson Sprint cup teams. In 2006 and 2007 Charlie was instrumental part of Jimmie Johnson’s NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship Team.

2008 will be an exciting year for Charlie Langenstein.
Charlie will put Cody Humphries in the #5 to do battle at the Charlotte Motors Speedway. He and his wife Beth are co-owners of the car.

Charlie is proud to announce with help from HL Motorsports of Concord, N.C. that he has received major sponsorship from Red Devil Energy Drink and is looking forward to show casing the energy and talent it takes to race for the series championship.

2008 will also be memorable for Charlie, as he works with the Hendrick Motorsports staff and teams 24&48. The 48 team with driver Jimmie Johnson are defending NASCAR Sprint Champions and are trying to pull of the 3 peat, or possibly make a run for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship with 4 time champion Jeff Gordon.
With a 1-2 finish in the championship in 2007 the bar has been set very high.
Charlie’s “golf game” will be owner/crewchief of the Kar Racing Bandalaro chasin the championship and representing Red Devil Energy Drink and his many racing partners including HL Motorsports.

Charlie stated that Red Devil Energy Drink has giving me the Energy to chase these goals set forth and with out a doubt Charlie will be up for the Challenge. 

Other team members to be added soon!