Working Life is a monthly column in which Texans talk about their jobs. Ryan Hampton, who is 52, tests tire performance at the Goodyear Tire Proving Grounds, in San Angelo.I’m originally from Southern California—a town up in the foothills in L.A. County. There was a road with an infamous spot called “the dip.” It’s a gigantic uphill and then it drops superfast. Cars bottomed out all the time, and we used to encourage my dad to go faster and faster through there.My father was in amateur racing, and his driving habits probably rubbed off on me. I started racing karts when I was a teenager, and when I was eighteen we built a race car in my dad’s shop. My first year of racing, I won…