Meet The Team
Competition has always been a family effort at TWE Racing. What started decades ago at tracks across the Northeast has come full circle with a new generation behind the wheel.
Today, the team brings that experience together around a shared goal of giving Thomas the tools and opportunities to grow as a driver. Every member of TWE Racing plays a part, both at the track and away from it, as the team continues to learn, compete and build toward the future.
Our Driver
THOMAS ENGSTROM
Thomas's first taste of quarter midget racing was through an arrive-and-drive program designed to provide kids an opportunity to try racing. It didn't take long for him to realize he had found something he loved. His grandfather, who calls him “Ziggy,” soon helped put him in his first kart, turning an opportunity to try racing into the beginning of something much bigger.
Thomas is a sociable kid who can usually be found
laughing and building friendships with fellow
competitors around the paddock. But when the
helmet goes on, he knows it's time to clock in. His
focus shifts to the racetrack and the goals of the
team, approaching every lap as an opportunity to learn.
No matter what action on the track throws his way, Thomas never loses sight of racing's most important rule: always have fun.
Away from the track, Thomas is a huge Halloween fan with a particular fascination for animatronics, which he hopes to design himself someday. That love of Halloween made its way onto the racetrack, inspiring the vibrant orange and green colors of his kart appropriately nicknamed “The Pumpkin.” The combination has since become a signature of TWE Racing. In a field of karts, there's rarely any question which one belongs to Thomas, creating an identity that stands out and gives the team and its partners a distinctive platform to build around.
Our Crew Chief
MICHAEL ENGSTROM
Michael’s path in racing started long before TWE Racing. Growing up around asphalt modifieds, he began working on race cars as soon as he was old enough to get into the pits at Riverhead Raceway in New York. While working on the famed 8X for his uncle, Eddie Brunnhoelzl, Michael crossed paths with Mike Wheeler, who gave him an opportunity to join Eddie Partridge’s TS Haulers team.
Racing also led Michael to Thomas’s mom, Kristin. A racer herself, Kristin became the first female 3/4 midget winner in the Northeast before moving into modifieds. It was at the Waterford Speedbowl in Connecticut that her path crossed with Michael’s. Years later, the sport that brought them together is something they now share with Thomas.
Michael joined Joe Gibbs Racing in 2004, where his career has taken him from race engineering to his current role overseeing race car production. More than two decades spent at one of NASCAR’s premier organizations has given him a perspective on competition that reaches far beyond simply making a race car fast.
At TWE Racing, Michael brings that experience back to where it all started: grassroots racing. As Thomas’s crew chief, he approaches a quarter midget with the same attention to detail and curiosity that has shaped his professional career. But this time, the driver behind the wheel is his son. The result is a unique opportunity to pass along what racing has taught him while the two learn, compete and build something of their own together.
Always In Our Corner
Racing has always been a family affair. With a history in the sport that spans generations, TWE Racing is surrounded by a family that has helped pave the way and continues to be the team’s biggest cheering section. We couldn’t do what we do without the people who support us behind the scenes.
Tom McKnight
Grandpa
Kristin Engstrom
Mom
Lois McKnight
Grandma
Ella Engstrom
Sister