Two sports plus two men equal multiple auto-racing championships
It's an impressive feat winning a championship in any professional sport.
Win more than one title in the same sport and you are a member of a very elite club.
But to win professional championships in two different sports and at two different positions is something almost unheard of.
Unless you're Jason Line.
Line, 45, comes into this weekend's NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway as the points leader in the fiercely competitive Pro Stock class, where he drives the Summit Racing Equipment Camaro.
Already, Line has two Pro Stock World Championships to his credit, winning the titles in 2006 and '11. This year, he leads the points, having made it to the final round in each of the first four races, two of which Line won, with teammate Greg Anderson winning the other two.
That's a solid record for any driver.
But Line is pretty good with wrenches, too.
NHRA Pro Stock driver Jason Line celebrates with a burnout after winning at the Mopar Parts Mile High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in July of 2015.
In fact, he was the engine tuner for Bobby Labonte's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship season of 2000 with Joe Gibbs Racing.
Two professional sports, three championships and still going strong.
Not many people have achieved that much. Nor do many successfully transition from one form of racing to another, but Line has.
Line grew up on drag racing in his native Minnesota, but one trip to JGR was all it took to open his eyes to the possibilities in NASCAR racing.
"I had no clue about Cup racing," said Line in an exclusive interview with FOXSports.com. "I knew nothing. I knew it existed and that was about it."
That quickly changed.
"When I came down to Charlotte for the first time and went to Joe Gibbs Racing and saw the facility, I just realized there was a whole other world I was missing," said Line. "It was great for me. I learned a lot. It was absolutely the building blocks that helped me get to this point."
At JGR, Line became a key member of Labonte's team, serving as a dyno operator and engine tuner.
"I would say for me, it was somewhat life-altering," Line said of his time at JGR. "It was a world I had never experienced before and they gave me an opportunity that I wasn't going to get anywhere else. It was great."
Greg Anderson celebrates winning the Pro Stock finals at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway in Charlotte, N.C., in April of 2012.
Still, Line wanted to get back to drag racing, his first love in motorsports. So he joined forces with Anderson and team owner Ken Black to create one of the sport's top Pro Stock teams -- Anderson has four championships of his own -- and one that definitely marches to the beat of its own drum.
Line and Anderson are unique. Their team builds their own engines and machines their own cylinder heads and manifolds for their two cars and a third satellite team. All the other Pro Stock teams buy their heads and manifolds from an outside vendor.
"The pros, obviously, are whatever you can develop and create and find that may run good or be an advantage, you can hold on that advantage," said Anderson. "The cons being you live on your own little island. You really have nobody to help you. Versus all the teams we race against, it's almost a 14-against-2 atmosphere."
Another key difference with the team: Line and Anderson spend most of their time actually working on their cars instead of being hired-gun drivers.
Jason Line
"If we couldn't do it that way, we'd probably do something else," Line said. "Greg's a really, really hard worker. You're not going to outwork him, that's for sure."
Both men enjoy being hands-on with their cars and both have great attitudes about what they do.
"As far as Jason and I, we do it a different route," said Anderson. "We like to work on our own race cars, we like to work in the shop every day. We like to work on our cars at the race track. We're not just hired drivers."
"I wouldn't do it any other way," said Line. "I enjoy that part of it. Winning is a byproduct of that. I enjoy the hands-on stuff more than the actual racing part."
More importantly, perhaps, they both understand the critical importance team chemistry plays in on-track success.
"As we mature and get older and realize it's not all about us, there's more give and take," said Line.
"We realize that we don't win because of Jason Line. We don't win because of Greg Anderson. We win because of the 15 people that we've got surrounding us and helping us," said Anderson.
"The crew chief, the car chief, everybody's important," said Anderson. "Everybody that does a job pulls an equal amount of weight around here. We consider everybody to be just as important. I think we just realize, without any one of those 15 cogs, we're nothing."
