CONCORD, N.C. -- In his racing career, Bill Spencer has worked for some iconic figures, namely Roger Penske.

But it was his more-than-a-decade-long tenure with A.J. Foyt and the IndyCar Series that makes the 37-year-old Texas native nostalgic for Indy cars during the month of May.

Yet he is helping prepare a stock car to run for 600 miles in North Carolina when in years prior Spencer was accustomed to the famous 500 in Indiana.

He misses dinners with Foyt at St. Elmo's in downtown Indianapolis, the pomp and pageantry of the greatest spectacle in racing and most of all he misses odd jobs Foyt would give him back at his Texas ranch, such as fixing bulldozers and other equipment.

"This month is tough. After going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for 11 years, you miss it. I watched Carb Day [Friday] ...," said Spencer, who is now working for Kurt Busch's No. 2 team and in his third season in NASCAR after leaving the open-wheel series in 2005.

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NASCAR measures the right height with tape measures. In IndyCar we used digital calipers to the thousandth. That was funny.

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BILL SPENCER

The open-wheel mechanic turned stock-car crew member is nothing new to the sport; many wrench men from Penske Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing have made the switch, drivers included.

But few crew members, if any, have had the pleasure of working under such a colorful yet cantankerous racing icon as Foyt.

Spencer said the stories are too numerous to print, but around this time of year he always recalls the famous dispute with Arie Luyendyk in Victory Lane at Texas Motor Speedway in 1997.

"I was there for that fairly comical event," he laughed. "Everyone was celebrating in winners circle and all the sudden Arie comes in mouthing off. A.J. asked what he was mouthing about. He finally figured it out and next thing I knew, this big ole hand reached out to Arie. That's was a pretty funny deal."

Foyt gave Luyendyk a substantial slap for disputing his driver's win and the four-time winner of the Indy 500 pushed Luyendyk down in the tulips.

"At the end of the deal, they figured out we were second, we lost and Arie did win," Spencer said. "A.J. told him if he wanted the trophy, he was going to have to come to Texas and get it. He still has the trophy. They had to make Arie a new trophy."

Those were the days, Spencer said, but working inside NASCAR's Sprint Cup garage brings a new set of wanted challenges and the opportunity to be competitive again.

The days of struggling with a small-team operation, which until a couple of years ago didn't employ an engineering staff, has been traded for the big-leagues of NASCAR, where the jobs and responsibilities on the No. 2 of Busch's Dodge are specialized, Spencer said.

No longer does he feel responsible for big-picture performances as a chief mechanic in the IndyCar Series. As a mechanic at Penske, he can focus his efforts on one job, and that's the interior of the car -- gages, seats, safety equipment as well as front suspensions.

"I'm a lot busier over here but with Foyt Racing being such a small team, I worried about everything. In my eyes we didn't have enough people to do the job and be competitive, but that's just the way A.J. is -- he didn't want a bunch of people and I wanted to try a different concept," he said.

But the wide-sweeping responsibility placed on Spencer is what has made him a multi-faceted crew member today.

"Working for A.J., I learned so much from that team having to do a little bit of everything from getting to the track and everything from top to bottom of the car," he said.

When Spencer was hired in the late 1990s, Jack Starne, Foyt's general manager, said if Spencer could take the car apart completely and then put it back together again, the mechanic's job was his.

In Spencer's first year on the job, A.J. Foyt Racing won the 1999 Indianapolis 500 and 1998 IndyCar Series title with Kenny Brack. That was an unforgettable moment, yes, but this year's second-place Daytona 500 finish is equally as spectacular.

Interesting enough, Spencer said when he left the IndyCar Series, Foyt said he wouldn't enjoy it and that he would miss the cars and the responsibility.

The technology perhaps ...

"NASCAR measures the right height with tape measures. In IndyCar we used digital calipers to the thousandth," Spencer said. "That was funny."

But if he gets nostalgic for an open-wheel race aside from the Indy 500, Spencer can just drop on his former open-wheel pal Sam Hornish Jr., who is finding his footing in Penske Racing's stock cars as well.

"It's an old comfort. I was the car chief for Sam's car for a few races in the Nationwide Series before I moved to the No. 2 team," Spencer said. "It was neat because I think I was able to provide some comfort especially when people were saying he would just crash all the time. He's figuring this deal out just like I am."

Nevertheless, he doesn't forget how to make the cars go fast.

"Foyt," he simply said. "The biggest lesson I learned from him was that he taught me to pay attention to detail. He told me you have to do all the little things in order for the big things to come."