Posted: Mon May 18, 1998 at 6:48 PM ET

INDIANAPOLIS (CNN/SI) -- For as much controversy that came with the creation of the Indy Racing League and the split that developed at the Indianapolis 500, business has never been better at the Gasoline Alley Industrial Park, located one mile south of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

With business in both the CART Championship Series and the Indy Racing League, as well as affiliated business in sprint, midget and Silver Crown racing and even NASCAR Winston Cup, there is a tremendous rejuvenation of growth in the cottage industry of racing in the Indianapolis area.

Riley & Scott is one of the many Indianapolis-based racing manufacturers that is cashing in on the growth of the IRL and racing in general. In fact, the cottage industry in the Gasoline Alley Industrial Park is operating at full capacity.

"Chris Paulsen is one of our suppliers, I've known Chris for a long time since he started his business and we are good friends," said Mark Scott of one of the parts manufacturers located in the industrial park. "Even though he is right across the alley, we just about hardly ever get to see him because he is working so hard with all the new work that has come in with the IRL included.

"There are a lot of guys like that in an industry that was almost ground to a halt just a few years ago. Now, we are at the point where everyone is at capacity. The toughest thing now is getting people. It's a real struggle, but it's a good struggle."

Paulsen owns and operates C & R Racing in Gasoline Alley, which designs and builds race car parts.

"Right now, if you are a good Indy car mechanic, there is no reason why you can't get a very good job that pays well," said Paulsen. "That wasn't that way a few years ago.

"The racing business as a whole right now across the board is doing better than ever. Anybody who is involved in racing in our end of the field, which is manufacturing parts, the business is out of sight right now.

"With the IRL and CART and NASCAR -- those are strong series. The IRL is coming on and it has created a lot of extra work for our company. Our company does a wide variety of parts. It has been great for our business.

"Gasoline Alley as an industrial park. I don't think there is anybody on the street who is not doing real well right now. Companies like ours, we are busting at the seams. We need a bigger building once a year. We sure can't complain."

Paulsen currently employs 16 and the company operates as a job shop with CNC equipment and metal fabrication work. C & R builds a wide variety of race car parts that are custom built, either to an engineer's drawing or items designed in-house.

C & R is a leading manufacturer of radiators, oil coolers and cooling system components in NASCAR Winston Cup. In Indy car racing, the company specializes in machine components and suspension pieces for both CART and the IRL.

Parts built by Paulsen's company will be on cars in all three Memorial Day Weekend events, including the Motorola 300 CART Championship Series race near St. Louis, the 82nd Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"The NASCAR thing came about because Steve Hmiel at Roush Racing contacted me about six years ago and wanted to build a radiator for him -- something different than what they were running," Paulsen said, referring to the team manager of the five-car NASCAR Winston Cup operation. "At that period of time, everybody had the same designed radiator and I came up with an entirely different design -- a two core system we were using. It worked really well.

"Roush was the first team to start using it and right after that, Childress jumped on it. After that, it just took off and that is how we got involved in NASCAR. Since then, we have expanded on a lot of different machine parts for them. We have really had a great deal to do with the huge changes in the cooling systems there."

Seventy-five to 80 percent of the Winston Cup teams use Paulsen's cooling systems on their cars.

"The bottom line is those guys will go wherever they have to go to get the best product and we hit on some very good designs," Paulsen said. "To go along with that, we have joined forces with General Motors and Delphi, which has been a great help to us. That has helped us a lot."

When Paulsen started his business, he focused mainly on Indy car fabrication and machine components. He worked as a chief mechanic on several Indy car teams and ran race teams out of his shop to help make ends meet. He worked with Jeff Stoops, Vince Granatelli and Ron Hemelgarn on their Indy car teams and worked on the developmental Greenfield engine in 1993.

Paulsen is concerned, however, that some of the teams in the IRL are doing it without significant sponsorship.

"There are some teams struggling, but there is growth in the series," Paulsen said. "There is no such thing as a decent race mechanic who can't find a job now if they work on Indy cars. The two series has sucked up everybody.

"The pay scale across the board in auto racing has picked up a great deal. It has been instrumental in putting a lot of jobs out there, no question about it, and a lot of extra business for shops like ourself."

Paulsen does miss some of the innovation that teams used to showcase in the Indianapolis 500, but believes in the days when CART raced here, innovation was being minimized.

"The IRL has gotten like that, but in a lot of respects, CART was the same way," Paulsen said. "The nature of the business has undergone an evolution with race cars being factory built like Reynard or Lola or in this case, Dallara or a G Force. That has really taken away a lot of innovation right there. The innovation takes places with the car builders.

"The nature of the IRL doesn't let that innovation run as wild as CART, but over a period of time with growth, that will be forced to happen. As the sport grows financially, there will be more room for that. The ability to have that innovation will be in place. Right now, they are a being a little conservative because they are trying to build a brand new series and rightfully so. That is the way it probably needs to be approached.

"The IRL is definitely expanding. The first two years, you only had two or three decent funded race teams like Team Menard and Treadway Racing. Now, Riley & Scott has a nice deal with their race team and Kelley Racing and Jonathan Byrd. There are some decent teams out there now and you can see the growth coming on. There are still some guys struggling with cars without sponsors, but that is bound to happen initially."

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