Travis Geisler
NASCAR Competition Director
Travis Geisler celebrates his 13th season as Team Penske's NASCAR Competition Director in 2023.
As Competition Director, Geisler is responsible for all facets of Team Penske's championship-winning NASCAR racing programs and he serves as a liaison for the organization's crew chiefs and the team's engineering departments. Geisler reports directly to Team Penske President of NASCAR Operations, Michael Nelson.
A Pittsburgh-area native, Geisler comes from a racing family. His father, Lynn, races dirt Late Models and is in the Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame. His brother, Ben, is Chief Marketing Officer for the World Racing Group.
Geisler began racing go-karts at age 14 and moved to dirt Late Models two years later. He advanced to NASCAR's Weekly Racing Series, where he competed for four years in Late Models. The last year that he raced in that division at Motordrome Speedway in Smithton, Penn., he won seven of his 17 races and finished second in the point standings.
After receiving his degree in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University, Geisler ran six races in the Auto Zone Elite Series and an ARCA Menards Series event.
In 2004, he competed in a dozen NASCAR Xfinity Series races for DCT Motorsports and worked full-time at the race shop. Geisler joined Robert Yates Racing in 2006 as a Xfinity Series race engineer and then moved to the organization's Cup Series team shortly after the season began.
He came to Team Penske in November 2006 to serve as team engineer on the No. 12 car and was subsequently promoted to the position of crew chief of the No. 77 Cup Series team midway through the 2008 season. He was named Team Penske's NASCAR Competition Director at the conclusion of the 2010 NASCAR season.
Geisler and his wife Carrie have two sons, Noah and Evan, and reside in Davidson, N.C.