Craig Hibdon, an instructor at the NASCAR Institute of Technology, holds up a dial caliper that can measure engine parts to one-thousandth of an inch: "A nice little tool," he tells students in his NASCAR Engines I course.

Next door, at PIT Instruction and Training, coach Andrew Carter models proper hip placement, footwork, and weight distribution to achieve a 13-second pit stop.

And down the road at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, graduates are shopping their motorsports-engineering degrees among the many racing teams based in their school's backyard.

It's all part of a wider boom in NASCAR-oriented college-level courses being offered throughout the South and particularly in greater Charlotte, home to Lowes Motor Speedway and scores of NASCAR team headquarters - and it's one of myriad ways that the NASCAR craze has transformed this region.

The bevy of training programs and NASCAR attractions draw more than students. In Mooresville, 30 miles north of Charlotte, bus tours pack in race fans for trips to the enormous headquarters of Dale Earnhardt Inc., the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame, and the Richard Petty Driving School. The town, after all, has been courting the racing industry since the late 1980s when its textile industry began to fade. Motorsports is a $5 billion a year industry here, according to the Mooresville Chamber of Commerce, and the town boasts 60 race teams and more than 100 race-related suppliers. There are more personal bragging rights, too: It's where Dale Earnhardt Jr. attended high school.

Charlotte, too, is a NASCAR mecca, and a far cry from its one-time reputation of a shirt-and-tie banking town. You can't throw a fistful of lug nuts without hitting someone employed by or affiliated with stock-car racing, America's fastest-growing sport. The promise of working alongside Earnhardt or Jeff Gordon has lured an entire generation of aspiring NASCAR drivers, mechanics, and pit crews. And just as a cottage industry of acting schools grew to meet the demands of aspiring actors in Hollywood early in the 20th century, the past few years have seen an explosion of NASCAR-themed training schools around Charlotte.

But Charlotte also has its own version of Hollywood's boulevards of broken dreams: Many students here are discovering that a motorsports-technology degree from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College or an engineering degree from the University of North Carolina is not necessarily a ticket to a NASCAR career. In fact, at the NASCAR Institute of Technology, students must sign a disclaimer that states, "I understand that by graduating from any NASCAR training program, I am not guaranteed employment in the automotive industry [or] NASCAR."

Working for a racing team - as a pit-crew member or mechanic - was once a part-time weekend lark of a job. But in NASCAR's Nextel-sponsored big leagues, pit crews and engineers have recently begun to broach the six-figure salary mark, which has led to competition for jobs - and among training schools.

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