By alley - Jun 11, 2015, 5:47 AM ET

LM24: Father and son turned rivals at Le Mans

Celebrated Corvette Racing crew chief Dan Binks brought his son Phil to Le Mans for the first time in 2007. At 13, the junior Binks was quickly put to work by the blue collar team, and before long, the die was cast. The familiar tale of a son wanting to follow in his father's footsteps took root, and by 16, Phil – who shares his dad's rugged frame – was being loaned to other sports car pit crews at American Le Mans Series events.

Fast forward to 2015 and the Binks family is duly represented at La Sarthe with Dan looking after the factory GTE-Pro Corvette C7.Rs, and Phil, now 22, working as a mechanic on the factory Nissan Motorsports GT-R LM NISMO LMP1-Hybrid program. The elder Binks has always been proud of his son, but seeing Phil embark on a career of his own just down the road has been especially heartwarming.

"It wasn't too long ago where he was here running tires and getting stuff going in the Corvette garage," Dan told RACER. "Being part of a professional race team was my dream, and then it actually happened for me. And then it's happened for Phil, which is pretty exciting for the whole family."

Emulating his championship-winning father will take time, and as Phil explains, he's been practicing for almost half his life.

"It's been awesome, really...obviously, not your average childhood, by any means," he said with a laugh. "It's what I love to do and, fortunately, it's worked out amazingly, really. I've been pretty fortunate to be... everybody at Corvette has allowed me to be around them and learn, I've been here for two Le Mans wins, which is just unbelievable in itself, not to mention all the other Sebrings and Petits."

Thanks to Phil's size, hurling heavy tires around comes rather easy to the lad, and despite his youth, Dan says he felt comfortable getting his son started on pit lane earlier than most – earlier than the ALMS rules might have allowed, too...

"Think about this, he changed tires on an LMP1 car with a friend's team at Petit when he was 16!"

"They needed help and I was there," Phil added. "I'm like, it's free. I've most recently worked for Alex Job Racing, and that was awesome, and the people that gave me my first go was H' with the Robertson Racing team. They hired me while I was still a senior in high school – a fly-in race mechanic. Trying to explain that to the principal was interesting."

His father could have pulled a few strings to place Phil in a factory P1 team, but his son earned the job on his own.

"I'm super proud that he was able to get that job; he knew some of the players there, sent his resume, and they called," he said. "There was some concern about Dad and maybe information coming this way from Nissan or whatever. Soon after he got the job there, I think the information was going the other way..."

Phil's dad willfully helped the ambitious young team wherever possible, lending expertise – with a power steering issue on the GT-R LM NISMO's – and resources as needed.

"There were a couple issues that they had and we helped them out, getting parts for them so they could get their cars certified--they needed some electrical pieces too, connectors, or whatever," Dan explained. "This pit lane is a family and if you don't help everybody, it comes back to bite you. We try to help everybody and because Phil's right down pit lane from us, he might get a little extra."

They're racing in different classes, but the competitive nature runs strong in the Binks family. It makes for a friendly rivalry and, thanks to Dan's mischievous ways, has led to at least one prank.

"I want to race him as bad as he wants to race me," Dan noted before pulling up a photo of the Nissan #EatSleepRaceRepeat branding he modified during the Le Mans Test Day.

"He probably wants to beat me worse. And the day that he does beat us, if we ever race in the same class, I would be the proudest father on pit lane."

For Phil, who stands in a vast shadow cast by his father, making his way with Nissan could be the first step – in time – to building a name of his own.

"I still have some goals that I want to reach, but obviously I've only done this, you could say professionally, for five years," he said. "I think I've done fairly well in those five years. Ending up as a chassis mechanic on a factory P1 team at 22 is a pretty solid achievement."