Who is Jessica Hook? NASCAR engineer for Hendrick Motorsports explored

Hendrick Motorsports engineer Jessica Hook is in the spotlight as the team is celebrating National Engineers Week. HMS is putting their engineers in the limelight who make valuable contributions to the design and performance of the car.

Jessica Hook is a design engineer at Hendrick Motorsports, who uses CAD software to design various parts used to build the Chevrolet Camaros. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Hook worked for the IMSA sports car team Riley Technologies for six years, before joining NASCAR.

A native of Wichita, Kansas, Hook attended her first NASCAR race at Kansas Speedway, when she was 12 years old. Hook's father Kraig Rowe, a mechanical engineer, guided his daughter to use her engineering skills in the world of motorsports.

Coming full circle to join NASCAR, the 34-year-old joined Hendrick Motorsports in 2018. Working as a design engineer, she designs the parts of the cars and tools used to build the car on software. She is also the 'chief of staff' of the Garage 56 outfit, which is gearing up for its 24 Hours Le Mans debut on June 10.

Speaking about the most rewarding part of her job, Hook said:

"The most rewarding (part of my job) is when I’m able to design something that gets put into the car and everything works the first time."

Hendrick Motorsports has dominated on track this season, with two of its drivers winning six races. The work put in by Hook alongside many other engineers is bearing the fruits on track.

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Jessica Hook recalls attending her first NASCAR race

Jessica Hook is a long-time fan of NASCAR, as she has following the sport since her childhood. She inherited her father's fandom when she attended her first race at Kansas Speedway.

In a recent interview with NASCAR, she said:

"I think I went because neither of my other siblings wanted to go kind of thing. And I remember being in the stands and hearing the cars turned on for the first time. And it was like, it lit something in me and hasn’t gone away since."

She added:

"So that’s when I saw them, I heard them and I remember telling my dad on the drive home, I wanted to be on the other side of the fence and working in and contributing to a team that could win a race. So that’s what started it. I was probably eighth-grade-ish in school. It just never went away."

Jessica Hook is now focused on the Garage 56 team which represents NASCAR's entry in one of motorsports' crown jewel events, the 24 Hours of Le Mans