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Photo by Erin Nelson
Chase McMaster, owner and founder of Chase Bays, stands in his warehouse in the Trussville Industrial Park on Jan. 6.
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Photos by Erin Nelson.
A fuel pressure regulator, designed and manufactured by Chase Bays.
Chase McMaster may be the only person in the world who has created a snowball in Arizona.
Before he flew to Phoenix and molded that metaphorical snowball at age 17, before he rolled that snowball into a multimillion-dollar aftermarket automotive products company, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee while skateboarding. McMaster was going through a growth spurt when he tore his ACL, and it never healed well, so kickflips and boardslides quickly changed from teenage hobbies to distant memories.
Skateboarding was a creative outlet for McMaster, who attended Trussville schools from the fifth through 11th grades. The sport’s success is subjective, a blank canvas based largely on style and creativity. The same, McMaster figures, went for car engines.
“I kind of saw it as this parallel where I could be creative and also create an adrenaline rush that I got from skateboarding,” McMaster said.
McMaster got a Nissan 240SX when he turned 16, and he fiddled under the hood. He wanted his car to go faster, so he swapped out the engine. He got another car, a 1988 Honda, and the engine bay was like a messy desk. A frustrated McMaster cleaned it up. He started with the wiring and then created new fuel lines and brake lines. He worked on the power steering, changed the setup of the radiator and more.
The result was a clutter-free engine bay that was aesthetically pleasing and easier to work on. McMaster posted his work on Internet forums, where motorists across the country said they’d pay him to fly to their cities and do the same work.
“It kind of just blew up,” McMaster said. “It was kind of this new caveat that I happened to create out of pure frustration.”
Ten people in Phoenix committed to pay McMaster $400 each for the work. He flew west and stayed on a customer’s couch. He was 17, wearing worn-out clothes and an unkempt hair-do.
“I have no idea what they were thinking when I got there,” he said.
He went to work. He was under 10 hoods in 10 days. Each one took 12-14 hours to complete, four to six hours longer than he had estimated. He barely slept. He would finish one car at 5 a.m. and begin the next one at 9 a.m. While McMaster was there, 10 more people paid him to clean up their engine bays. He extended his stay and continued to work, ultimately earning $8,000 in 20 days.
“The pressure was on, so I worked harder than I had ever worked in my life, not that my professional career was long at that point, but a 17-year-old working 14 hours a day was pretty unheard of,” he said.
McMaster flew around the country making fuel and brake lines and hiding wires. He went as far west as Seattle and as far east as North Carolina. He was making enough money that his inclination to attend Auburn University and study industrial design, like his skateboarding hobby, became a thing of the past.
He moved to Los Angeles for two years because the industry he was pursuing was the biggest out there. Tired of traveling the country sleeping on couches, McMaster focused on creating products: radiators, brake lines, clutch lines, fuel lines. It was a “slow burn,” McMaster recalls, learning operations and business by reading as many books as he could. He needed a shop to create his products, so he moved home to Alabama, where the real estate prices are bearable.
“I’ve made every mistake you can imagine, but somehow the company stayed afloat, just through grit and persistence,” McMaster said.
The first Chase Bays shop opened in Pelham and was “basically a storage unit,” he said. Chase Bays moved to Argo and then to a small, almost hidden, location in Trussville behind a car dealership. From there, the company moved to downtown Birmingham, where it remained for a handful of years.
As the company flourished, McMaster knew he needed more warehouse space and land. He got to thinking about Trussville, which he considered somewhat of a home. He met with the Trussville Industrial Development Authority, from which McMaster got the impression that Chase Bays was wanted in Trussville. McMaster’s company purchased a warehouse in the Trussville Industrial Park in August.
“It’s always exciting to have new businesses to locate in Trussville and, in particular, to our Industrial Park,” Trussville Mayor Buddy Choat said. “Chase Bays is a great addition to our park, and we are very excited and fortunate to have them as a new business in Trussville.”
The warehouse covers 50,000 square feet. Chase Bays, which specializes in designing and manufacturing fluid transfer products for the aftermarket automotive industry, now has 16 employees. McMaster said the goal is to break ground on a test track in April and have it completed by fall. A track will allow Chase Bays to test its products and get them to market faster. Currently, the company designs a product, prototypes it and schedules a test day on a track in Tennessee or even Texas, which could be a couple months into the future. With his own track, McMaster hopes to host events a few times a year to entertain local residents and show off what Chase Bays does. There will not be loud cars revving and racing at all hours.
“We’re very professional,” McMaster said. “We’re doing it to benefit ourselves, but also to benefit the city.”
McMaster is only 33, but he’s been a self-employed creator for 17 years. He has thought out his business model and read books and learned from every mistake he’s made. Arrogance? Not a chance. He has failed, persisted and kept moving forward. There is a confidence about McMaster, an inspiring authenticity.
“The reason I did this originally is because I wanted it,” McMaster said, emphasizing those last two words. “I wanted my car to be improved by this way. To me, it’s one of the most fun parts of the car. Because I know what we have and I know how different and exciting the products are, I would assume that other people are, too.”
McMaster loves cars for the creativity and adrenaline rush, for the motorsports and aesthetics. Chase Bays has created its own corner of the aftermarket automotive industry. It’s rare to find people thinking outside the box in most industries.
“It’s like this hidden world, in a way,” McMaster said.
Chase Bays may have been “hidden” in that storage unit in Pelham, by the Subway in Argo, and in a couple other places. Chase Bays is hidden no more, and is only becoming more visible in Trussville.
“Trussville’s home. We’re going to stay here,” McMaster said. “It’s been amazing [so far]. It’s nice to have a town that wants you there. We’re here, and we’re happy.”
