EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: Today’s Crews Filled With Athletes
(This is the fourth and final story in the four-part series dealing with how the pit stop has evolved in stock car racing over the past 60 years. Presented by TUMS, the number one antacid in America, award-winning motorsports writer Ben White chronicles the changes that have made a pit stop an art form and the people responsible for that transformation.).
In today’s intense motorsports world known as NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing, starting grids are comprised of 43 drivers competing in 36 points-paying events on 22 short tracks, road courses and superspeedways across the country. The level of competition is closer in 2010 than at any other time in NASCAR’s 62-year history.
NASCAR drivers are considered some of the most talented. They put their skills to the test lap after lap in hopes of gaining an edge on the race track. So equal are the Toyotas, Chevrolets, Fords and Dodges in Sprint Cup racing that in many cases, a team’s best way of gaining positions comes down to seconds gained from precision stops on pit road.
From where do these special individuals who perform those incredible 12-second stops come? Mostly from family backgrounds that span generations, college degrees in mechanical engineering, professional sports, and past careers as short-track drivers and crewmen. Through those doors entered the people that hold jobs in NASCAR’s most coveted arena of racing.
Unlike stock car racing's previous eras, today's crew members are highly specialized at their jobs. The No. 00 Michael Waltrip Racing crew showed their best work recently when they helped David Reutimann score a victory July 11 in the TUMS Toyota at Chicagoland Speedway.
In NASCAR, the crew chief is the leader of the pit crew and viewed as a head coach of sorts, as all decisions pertaining to car construction, chassis set-ups and race strategy is his responsibility. He also is in contact with the team's pit crew coach regarding the pit stops, the crew members' nutrition and their workout programs.
The car chief is in charge of scheduling day-to-day car preparations at the shop prior to the race weekend. He also makes certain the car being used on any given weekend meets all of NASCAR’s inspection requirements and oversees changes to the car requested by the crew chief or team engineer.
The jackman slides the jack under each side of the car to lift it high enough so tires can be replaced. He also pulls off the old right-rear tire after the rear tire changer loosens the lug nuts. When the stop is complete, he drops the jack to signal the driver to leave the pit.
The two tire carriers bring new tires over the pit wall and guide each wheel onto the studs on the hub. They must stay in contact with the old tires as they are being taken to the wall. The front-tire carrier is usually responsible for pulling the front fenders away from the tire if necessary. He may also be responsible for cleaning the car's grille and adding or removing tape from it during a pit stop in order to adjust the car's front end for more down force or to help lower engine temperature.
The rear-tire carrier may also make changes to the rear track bar and/or wedge unless done by the catch can man.
Don Marvel, the rear-tire carrier for the No. 00 TUMS team, has his eyes constantly moving during a stop, because there’s a lot to do in a very short amount of time.
“I run out with the rear tire, put the right rear on the car, take off the right rear that’s already on the car and bring it back to pit wall,” Marvel says. “Then I go to the left side and put the left rear tire on. I also take care of chassis adjustments with a wedge wrench. I might also serve the driver water or an ice pack if it’s a hot day.”
The front- and rear-tire changers remove the lug nuts and the old tires and tighten the new tires' five lug nuts to hold the wheels in place.
Eric Maycroft, the team's rear-tire changer, prepares for race day long before the green flag waves.
“The main preparation for actually changing tires comes during the week,” Maycroft explains. “We practice four times per week and we look at film on Mondays and work out on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. That’s when we get the bulk of our workout. Ten or 15 minutes before the race, we have a (stationary) hub (mounted to the pit wagon) that we hit (for practice).
“Track position is everything. If you get behind one or two guys, that’s one or two spots you can pick up on pit road. That just gets us that much closer to the front. Seeing spots gained on pit road gives you the best feeling. That keeps the driver’s confidence up and keeps the team pumped up.”
NASCAR champion Dale Jarrett always enjoyed great pit stops when he was driving.
“If you can pick up one or two spots, you can conquer the world,” Jarrett says. “You show a different side driving and the crew gets excited. So that makes the next stop better. It's such a huge boost to your confidence and mental attitude if you come in fifth and you can hold that spot or gain one. So it's kind of like a revolving door where you can continue to improve and move forward.
“On the other side of that, if you work your tail off on the race track and maybe you’ve worked hard to get to fifth and you go back out 10th, you realize how close the competition is. In that situation, you’re going to use up your car getting back to where you were. So it can go both ways.”
Rounding out the pit stop, the gasman fills the car with 18 gallons of fuel; while the catch can man catches any fuel overflow in a small container. He also holds the empty can while the gasman secures and fills the car with the second gas can while the left-side tires are being changed. When the catch can starts to fill, the catch can man signals the jackman there’s enough fuel in the car.
“It’s very rewarding when you have a really good pit stop,” says Jeff Seaberg, catch can man for the No. 00 TUMS team. “When the car leaves the box, you know right away if it was a good stop or not. You’re sort of depending on everyone else on the team. We all count on each other to get at the right spot at the right time. We know who is where and what we’re doing. We sort of have a playbook.
“The thrill of going over the wall is just the accomplishments of pulling off the perfect play. If the driver behind us goes long, I would be the guy to get hit because I’m standing between the two race cars. But that’s the last thing on your mind when you’re out there because you’re concentrating on the stop. I catch access fuel, but I also make physical adjustments to the race car. I’m also worried about being positioned so I can turn rounds on the track bar or doing wedge adjustments left or right depending on what we need. For me, my surroundings are pretty much irrelevant. Once you go over the wall, you do your job. We train and run through this so much; your internal clock tells you where you’re at.”
Finally, NASCAR regulations dictate that only seven individuals can go over the wall to service a race car during a pit stop. Crews are allowed only two impact wrenches, one jack, and two cans of gasoline on pit road. Other tools may be used if needed, but in the event major work is needed, the car must be repaired in the garage.
NASCAR occasionally allows an eighth man over the wall to help with special circumstances pertaining to the driver, but he may not make any other adjustments on the car.
Ray Evernham, former crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports and former Sprint Cup team owner, has seen pit stops evolve into the art form that exist today.
“The Wood Brothers sort of had the patent on making a fast pit stop,” Evernham says. “Those guys really came up with the idea. What we did at Hendrick Motorsports was improve on that and take it to the next level. What the teams have done in 2010 is take it to the next level again.
“Now they’ve taken that idea well into the future. Everyone has a trainer. Everyone has someone in sports medicine. They watch all kinds of film. They’ve got computer layovers. They can count the number of steps with people and they have back-up teams. Now the technology and the tools and the development of the human body just keep making those pit stops get faster and faster. And it's way more critical now because the cars are so closely matched and so closely competitive.”
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Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: ERA OF THE RAINBOW WARRIORS
EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: ERA OF THE RAINBOW WARRIORS
(This is the third in a series of four stories about how the pit stop has evolved in stock car racing over the past 60 years. Presented by TUMS, the number one antacid in America, award-winning motorsports writer Ben White chronicles the changes that have made a pit stop an art form and the people responsible for that transformation.).
When Jeff Gordon tried his hand with the heavier NASCAR machines, the California native and Indiana transplant knew an opportunity to race stock cars would open up a new world of possibilities.
In 1991, Gordon moved south to drive for Bill Davis Racing in NASCAR's Busch Series [now Nationwide]. Driving cars for Ford Motor Co., Gordon would gain experience in the Busch Series, and then he and the team would move up to the Cup series together.
It was Speedweeks 1992, however, when a fateful meeting between Gordon and Ray Evernham would change everything and eventually turn into one of the most successful unions in NASCAR history. Evernham, a smart out-of-the-box thinker was a former Modified driver. He'd met NASCAR driver Alan Kulwicki while working as a mechanic with the International Race of Champions. Kulwicki wanted Evernham to work with him and finally the New Jersey native relented and moved to North Carolina. However, when the two reached Daytona in February 1992, a heated disagreement between the pair resulted in Evernham leaving the team. Evernham walked out of the garage and was headed home when he encountered Ford's NASCAR representative, Preston Miller, who guided Evernham to Bill Davis Racing and introduced him to Gordon who was 21 at the time.
Gordon’s ability to adapt to stock cars and his tremendous talent quickly fueled his name as NASCAR's next hot commodity. Midway through his freshman season in the Busch Series, team owner Rick Hendrick discovered Gordon wasn’t under contract. He quickly signed him and as part of the package brought Evernham into the fold. Hendrick realized he had a driver-crew chief combination that was as close to perfect as a racer could get.
Also, a primary sponsorship from DuPont Automotive paints and a blue paint scheme accented by rainbow colors on its quarter panels would lead to the “Rainbow Warriors” moniker that stuck among media members and fans alike.
Gordon and Evernham became fast friends, something that’s not always the case between drivers and crew chiefs.
“We hit it off right from the beginning,” Gordon said in the 2004 book, Twenty Years of Hendrick Motorsports. “I could tell right away he was a sharp guy. He was excellent on a chassis and is a former race car driver himself, so when I said, ‘Oh, it's doing this or that,’ he knew what I was talking about. He was somebody I could relate to. He was someone who knew quite a bit about a race car.”
Over the next decade, Gordon and Evernham won 52 races and three of Gordon’s four NASCAR championships in Hendrick’s Chevrolets. The first title came in 1995, his third full season of competition. With Evernham at his side, he also claimed titles in 1997 and 1998.
Evernham was always thinking, always looking for the advantage in the rules by studying the obvious, but seeing what other drivers, team owners and crew chiefs didn’t see. He had found something that proved to be the key for building a lightning-fast pit crew: Capitalize on the mental and physical strength the crew members bring to the team. He also developed specialized positions.
“When we decided to start the team, we decided to look at it like it was its own little separate sports team,” Evernham says. “I couldn’t let them concentrate on being a good mechanic or good fabricator during the day and still be able to concentrate on being a good athlete on pit road. When the crew guys were initially assembled, they knew everything they were going to do was going to be different.”
At the start of Gordon‘s rookie season in 1993, Evernham called upon Andy Papathanassiou, a former football player from Stanford University who had spent many years training for and playing various positions on the football field. His job was to put an athletic way of thinking into the minds of car guys who would rather watch a football game than train as if they would play in one.
Evernham knew he had his work cut out for him.
“We went about the whole thing differently,” Evernham explains. “At that time, we didn’t have a lot of money to pay people and the pit crew guys. They weren’t making six figure salaries, but these guys were good. They sacrificed and wanted to do it. I think they knew they were doing something that was unique and being rewarded for their efforts. They got to be a part of Hendrick Motorsports and a part of the No. 24 team. We had a great driver and a great team. It was a good, close-knit team.”
Just as a running back is fast on the field and a lineman blocks for his quarterback, Evernham wanted people in positions that fit them according to their size and ability.
“What made them fast was the fact we did look at it like a sports franchise,” Evernham continued. “We worked on physical conditioning, worked on flexibility. We picked people by size and by physical stature per position, whether that was a tire changer or jackman or whatever the position was. We also worked on speed drills, vertical leaps and things like that as part of the training program. We event had special hand-and-eye coordination drills. We measured body fat and got well into the pit crew conditioning before many of the other Sprint Cup teams did. We reviewed videos of pit stops and we were one of the first to do that, too. The guys worked and acted like a team.
“We weren’t the first ones to go into the physical fitness angle and expand on that because there were other teams doing it. We just took it to a more organized level. It wasn’t fragmented. It was part of the daily regime for those guys.”
Evernham smiles when he thinks back to all of the races during that eight-year span where the Rainbow Warriors pulled off race-winning miracles in the pits.
“I can’t pick one race where those guys came through in the end because to be truthful, they did for Jeff Gordon and for myself so many times,” Evernham says. “When the pressure was on, they would really step up. We could make calls that other people just couldn’t make. We could count on our guys. We just knew we were going to gain on pit road and not lose.
"They might not agree, but I think they had their best, yet toughest day when we won the Southern 500 at Darlington [S.C.] Raceway (on Aug. 31, 1997); the day Jeff won the first of three career Winston Million bonuses."
That day, Gordon had to fight a poor handling race car due to some chassis set-up miscues that resulted in numerous pit stops to fix the problems. There was little hope of winning until the Rainbow Warriors put him in position to take the checkered flag.
“Jeff drove his butt off that day,” Evernham said. “We pitted like 16 times trying to fix that thing. We had spring rubbers going in, spring rubbers going out, sway bar hooked up, sway bar unhooked. They held their own on pit road and kept us in position to win that race.”
Gordon knew first hand just how smoothly the Rainbow Warriors performed on pit road. He directly benefited from every move they made and on many occasions, the end result was champagne and confetti showers in victory lane.
“That was something that Ray and Hendrick Motorsports really did a lot with,” Gordon says. “By tuning up our pit crew, those guys became known as the best. (Other teams) feared them.
“I would come down pit road and I knew they were either going to get me out first or they were going to pick up two, three or four spots on pit road every time.
“I think the Rainbow Warriors is why the sport has come so far. Back then, you could look at an area and focus on that area and see a dramatic increase in performance. These days, everyone is so focused in all areas it's so hard to make any big gains or find an edge.”
In 2001, Gordon won his fourth NASCAR championship with crew chief Robbie Loomis. Evernham had left Hendrick Motorsports in late 1999 to form his own Sprint Cup team with Dodge. Now, he is a television analyst with ESPN, but he feels the union he shared with Gordon and the Rainbow Warriors was a very important piece of NASCAR’s storied history.
“That was just an incredible, incredible time,” Evernham said. “I honestly can’t count the times when it came down to the money stop that they got us right out and in position to win. There were a lot of those. Whether it was great coaching by Andy Papa or just that the team jelled. Those guys had a ton of confidence and they got it done for us. The Rainbow Warriors put me and Jeff in position to win a lot of races.”
(This is the third in a series of four stories about how the pit stop has evolved in stock car racing over the past 60 years. Presented by TUMS, the number one antacid in America, award-winning motorsports writer Ben White chronicles the changes that have made a pit stop an art form and the people responsible for that transformation.).
When Jeff Gordon tried his hand with the heavier NASCAR machines, the California native and Indiana transplant knew an opportunity to race stock cars would open up a new world of possibilities.
In 1991, Gordon moved south to drive for Bill Davis Racing in NASCAR's Busch Series [now Nationwide]. Driving cars for Ford Motor Co., Gordon would gain experience in the Busch Series, and then he and the team would move up to the Cup series together.
It was Speedweeks 1992, however, when a fateful meeting between Gordon and Ray Evernham would change everything and eventually turn into one of the most successful unions in NASCAR history. Evernham, a smart out-of-the-box thinker was a former Modified driver. He'd met NASCAR driver Alan Kulwicki while working as a mechanic with the International Race of Champions. Kulwicki wanted Evernham to work with him and finally the New Jersey native relented and moved to North Carolina. However, when the two reached Daytona in February 1992, a heated disagreement between the pair resulted in Evernham leaving the team. Evernham walked out of the garage and was headed home when he encountered Ford's NASCAR representative, Preston Miller, who guided Evernham to Bill Davis Racing and introduced him to Gordon who was 21 at the time.
Gordon’s ability to adapt to stock cars and his tremendous talent quickly fueled his name as NASCAR's next hot commodity. Midway through his freshman season in the Busch Series, team owner Rick Hendrick discovered Gordon wasn’t under contract. He quickly signed him and as part of the package brought Evernham into the fold. Hendrick realized he had a driver-crew chief combination that was as close to perfect as a racer could get.
Also, a primary sponsorship from DuPont Automotive paints and a blue paint scheme accented by rainbow colors on its quarter panels would lead to the “Rainbow Warriors” moniker that stuck among media members and fans alike.
Gordon and Evernham became fast friends, something that’s not always the case between drivers and crew chiefs.
“We hit it off right from the beginning,” Gordon said in the 2004 book, Twenty Years of Hendrick Motorsports. “I could tell right away he was a sharp guy. He was excellent on a chassis and is a former race car driver himself, so when I said, ‘Oh, it's doing this or that,’ he knew what I was talking about. He was somebody I could relate to. He was someone who knew quite a bit about a race car.”
Over the next decade, Gordon and Evernham won 52 races and three of Gordon’s four NASCAR championships in Hendrick’s Chevrolets. The first title came in 1995, his third full season of competition. With Evernham at his side, he also claimed titles in 1997 and 1998.
Evernham was always thinking, always looking for the advantage in the rules by studying the obvious, but seeing what other drivers, team owners and crew chiefs didn’t see. He had found something that proved to be the key for building a lightning-fast pit crew: Capitalize on the mental and physical strength the crew members bring to the team. He also developed specialized positions.
“When we decided to start the team, we decided to look at it like it was its own little separate sports team,” Evernham says. “I couldn’t let them concentrate on being a good mechanic or good fabricator during the day and still be able to concentrate on being a good athlete on pit road. When the crew guys were initially assembled, they knew everything they were going to do was going to be different.”
At the start of Gordon‘s rookie season in 1993, Evernham called upon Andy Papathanassiou, a former football player from Stanford University who had spent many years training for and playing various positions on the football field. His job was to put an athletic way of thinking into the minds of car guys who would rather watch a football game than train as if they would play in one.
Evernham knew he had his work cut out for him.
“We went about the whole thing differently,” Evernham explains. “At that time, we didn’t have a lot of money to pay people and the pit crew guys. They weren’t making six figure salaries, but these guys were good. They sacrificed and wanted to do it. I think they knew they were doing something that was unique and being rewarded for their efforts. They got to be a part of Hendrick Motorsports and a part of the No. 24 team. We had a great driver and a great team. It was a good, close-knit team.”
Just as a running back is fast on the field and a lineman blocks for his quarterback, Evernham wanted people in positions that fit them according to their size and ability.
“What made them fast was the fact we did look at it like a sports franchise,” Evernham continued. “We worked on physical conditioning, worked on flexibility. We picked people by size and by physical stature per position, whether that was a tire changer or jackman or whatever the position was. We also worked on speed drills, vertical leaps and things like that as part of the training program. We event had special hand-and-eye coordination drills. We measured body fat and got well into the pit crew conditioning before many of the other Sprint Cup teams did. We reviewed videos of pit stops and we were one of the first to do that, too. The guys worked and acted like a team.
“We weren’t the first ones to go into the physical fitness angle and expand on that because there were other teams doing it. We just took it to a more organized level. It wasn’t fragmented. It was part of the daily regime for those guys.”
Evernham smiles when he thinks back to all of the races during that eight-year span where the Rainbow Warriors pulled off race-winning miracles in the pits.
“I can’t pick one race where those guys came through in the end because to be truthful, they did for Jeff Gordon and for myself so many times,” Evernham says. “When the pressure was on, they would really step up. We could make calls that other people just couldn’t make. We could count on our guys. We just knew we were going to gain on pit road and not lose.
"They might not agree, but I think they had their best, yet toughest day when we won the Southern 500 at Darlington [S.C.] Raceway (on Aug. 31, 1997); the day Jeff won the first of three career Winston Million bonuses."
That day, Gordon had to fight a poor handling race car due to some chassis set-up miscues that resulted in numerous pit stops to fix the problems. There was little hope of winning until the Rainbow Warriors put him in position to take the checkered flag.
“Jeff drove his butt off that day,” Evernham said. “We pitted like 16 times trying to fix that thing. We had spring rubbers going in, spring rubbers going out, sway bar hooked up, sway bar unhooked. They held their own on pit road and kept us in position to win that race.”
Gordon knew first hand just how smoothly the Rainbow Warriors performed on pit road. He directly benefited from every move they made and on many occasions, the end result was champagne and confetti showers in victory lane.
“That was something that Ray and Hendrick Motorsports really did a lot with,” Gordon says. “By tuning up our pit crew, those guys became known as the best. (Other teams) feared them.
“I would come down pit road and I knew they were either going to get me out first or they were going to pick up two, three or four spots on pit road every time.
“I think the Rainbow Warriors is why the sport has come so far. Back then, you could look at an area and focus on that area and see a dramatic increase in performance. These days, everyone is so focused in all areas it's so hard to make any big gains or find an edge.”
In 2001, Gordon won his fourth NASCAR championship with crew chief Robbie Loomis. Evernham had left Hendrick Motorsports in late 1999 to form his own Sprint Cup team with Dodge. Now, he is a television analyst with ESPN, but he feels the union he shared with Gordon and the Rainbow Warriors was a very important piece of NASCAR’s storied history.
“That was just an incredible, incredible time,” Evernham said. “I honestly can’t count the times when it came down to the money stop that they got us right out and in position to win. There were a lot of those. Whether it was great coaching by Andy Papa or just that the team jelled. Those guys had a ton of confidence and they got it done for us. The Rainbow Warriors put me and Jeff in position to win a lot of races.”
EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: THE BEST IN THE ‘80S
EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: THE BEST IN THE ‘80S
(This is the second in a series of four stories about how the pit stop has evolved in stock car racing over the past 60 years. Presented by TUMS, the number one antacid in America, award-winning motorsports writer Ben White chronicles the changes that have made a pit stop an art form and the people responsible for that transformation).
The best pit crew of the 1980s emerged among a half dozen crewmen within Richard Childress Racing. Built by driver-turned-team-owner Richard Childress, the team won four consecutive Unocal Pit Crew championships from 1985 to 1988. The annual competition was held at the one-mile superspeedway in Rockingham, N.C., and open to the teams that had qualified for that weekend's NASCAR Cup race. Year after year, the RCR team excelled with its fast times and flawless performances. The few who drew a full-time paycheck from RCR had one common bond: They were diehard racers with a passion to win. It was all they knew and what truly defined their lives. That mentality was and continues to be evident in Childress, a Winston Salem, N.C., native. He grew up in the sport, working the grandstands at famed Bowman-Gray Stadium selling peanuts to fans watching the local short-track stars, as well as NASCAR Grand National legends such as Richard Petty, Curtis Turner and Rex White, on a bi-annual basis. Childress began his own driving career at the track in the early 1960s, enjoying countless victories and a strong fan following. In 1969, he transformed his team into a very modest Sprint Cup operation, collecting an impressive six top-5s and 76 top-10s in 285 starts, but no victories. Still, his cars were strong - enabling him to mix it up regularly with NASCAR’s top drivers and teams. When Dale Earnhardt, an up-and-coming superstar suddenly became available with 11 races remaining in the 1981 Sprint Cup season, Childress jumped at the chance to get him and left the driver’s seat to make room for the young, aggressive driver. Earnhardt didn’t win at first, but was competitive. He left Childress on good terms to wheel Ford Thunderbirds for veteran team owner Bud Moore in 1982-83, but returned to the small but promising one-car organization in 1984, picking up where they had left off. Little did anyone know at the time a dynasty had been born. The team produced 67 of Earnhardt’s 76-career wins and six of his seven championships in 17 seasons. Success enjoyed during that magical time came from Earnhardt’s incredible driving talent, Childress’ seemingly bullet-proof cars and engines, and a crew that turned wrenches on the team’s Chevrolets during the week and then produced precision pit stops on race day. So good were they at getting Earnhardt off pit road that the six-man crew was dubbed “The Flying Aces.” Horace Simpson carried tires to crew chief Kirk Shelmerdine and Will Lind, the front and rear tire changers, respectively. David Smith handled the jack duties, while Barney Boyd fueled the car with Rick Slaydon working the catch can. Eventually, Danny “Chocolate” Myers was added as the gasman with Bobby Moody handling catch can duties.
“We thought we were pretty good,” Shelmerdine says. “We had pretty good results most of the time. There were a lot of great pit crews on pit road back then, but hardly any of them beat us out very often. There was a certain standard you had to keep up to compete and we did that and then some.
“The pit crew was just another piece of that winning combination. Very few names changed in the line-up for a lot of those years and that was key. When one guy zigged, we all knew when to zag and perform as one unit.” Lind believes the fact their lives came together at a specific time in a specific place was meant to produce something great. “I’d like to say there was some great plan, but I think it was just one of those deals where you put five or six people together who were more opposites than what they had in common,” he said. “We just really meshed very well together. That’s half the battle with chemistry anyway. I think it happens by itself more times than when people try to make it happen. But it was just a group of guys who believed in each other. We were pretty much a band of brothers who spent more time with each other than we did our own families and somehow it all worked.” Lind also remembers how the over-the-wall pit crew was chosen. It usually came through a very short conversation, such as, “You're changing tires next Sunday.” “There really wasn’t any great science to it back then,” Lind recalls. “I got my opportunity to change tires when Larry Pollard left and went to work with what was then known as Petty Enterprises with Richard and Kyle Petty. I was just the next guy in line. It wasn’t like I was any kind of trained specialist to fill the position. I was there and I was a mechanic and the tire guy on the road crew. I got thrown into the mix. My first time doing it, I believe, was in 1983 when we went to Riverside, Calif., and won the thing with Ricky Rudd driving.”
In that era, the mechanics of a pit stop were quite different than what’s performed today. For instance, drivers brought their cars to a complete stop in the pit box before crews were allowed to go over the wall. Second, tire carriers handed tires off to changers and didn’t place them on the spindles. Finally, a third air gun was put into play, allowing work to be performed on both sides of the car at the same time. Even so, a time of 22 to 23 seconds was considered a good stop.
“Things were different then," Lind said. “You couldn’t leave the wall until the car was in the pit box. You couldn’t go out slightly ahead of the car like they do today. The times weren’t even relative.
“We had three air guns back then, too. We had a left-side guy who jumped over and loosened the left-side lugs while we were on the right side. All the teams did that before NASCAR outlawed the third gun. Still, we won the pit crew championship four years in a row and no other team has ever won four, much less four straight.”
Myers, a longtime RCR employee, recalls how everyone on the team had a variety of responsibilities. “We had no specialists whatsoever like what makes up teams today,” Myers recalls. “A pit crew member was the same guy who worked on the brakes, the same guy who worked on the motor and swept the floor. Everybody did everything.” Smith worked extremely hard to perfect his role as jackman, as the entire stop started with his ability to get the car in the air faster than anyone else. He worked with jack developer George Brunnhoelzl to perfect a jack that was lighter and faster for pit road. “I was the first to use a one-pump jack,” Smith says. “We started with a three-quarter pump in the jack that needed was five or six pumps to get the car in the air. Then, we went to a seven-eighths pump that needed only three or four pumps. Then we went to a one-inch pump. It was a bear to get pumped but I could do it in one pump. That cut off several seconds in the pits. We put a longer handle on it for better leverage. And over time, we also made the jacks lighter. “Having Dale Earnhardt as our driver was a big plus, but we did our part to beat other cars off pit road. We did that consistently. When Earnhardt came down pit road in third or fourth, we would most times have him coming out first or second. We all worked well together and just knew what the other guy was doing. We just made it happen.” Smith, a one-time crew chief for Earnhardt, was one of the first to recognize the need to train pit crews. He initially developed and perfected the basic program that all Sprint Cup teams use today.
“There are a lot more trained athletes out there now,” Smith continued. “As I got older, I started working out on my own and I felt stronger and more in shape. I knew to compete with the younger guys, I was going to have to. The guys today train hard and work hard. I spent a lot of time watching race tapes to make me a better jackman. [Teams now film their stops.] I also watched the tire carriers and tire changers because when I retired as a jackman, I was also Dale’s crew chief. From 1999 until 2005 when I left RCR, I was the pit crew manager and trainer. So I was working on the routines for those guys. I hired a regular trainer so those guys would be fit, eat right and not be tired out during races.”
“The Flying Aces set the standard for a lot of the other pit crews,” said Danny Lawrence, chief engine builder for RCR in the 1980s. “It was kind of like watching Tiger Woods play golf when they pitted a car. He doesn’t ever look like he’s in a hurry and they never did, either. Today, they use lighter aluminum jacks and better air sockets, etc. Then, it was just the ability of the guys to get the job done. Earnhardt was really good at getting in on pit road, but there was no pit road speed in those days. But we never seemed to have loose wheels because the boys didn’t make mistakes. Those guys had a lot invested in the race because they also worked on the cars. They didn’t fly guys in to change tires back then. They were the guys over the wall.”
Myers adds there was one important piece of the equation that glued the team together. “We were best of friends then and we’re still the best of friends today,” Myers says. “It wasn’t that we just liked each other, we loved each other. “I think what made the team so good was Richard Childress and Dale Earnhardt. They didn’t hesitate for one minute to give us what we needed to win. Richard was right there with us when we got there in the morning and when we left to go home at night. Sometimes, he was there longer than us and Dale was the same way. Those were two guys who never gave up whatsoever. Because of those guys, we just gave it all we had.”
(This is the second in a series of four stories about how the pit stop has evolved in stock car racing over the past 60 years. Presented by TUMS, the number one antacid in America, award-winning motorsports writer Ben White chronicles the changes that have made a pit stop an art form and the people responsible for that transformation).
The best pit crew of the 1980s emerged among a half dozen crewmen within Richard Childress Racing. Built by driver-turned-team-owner Richard Childress, the team won four consecutive Unocal Pit Crew championships from 1985 to 1988. The annual competition was held at the one-mile superspeedway in Rockingham, N.C., and open to the teams that had qualified for that weekend's NASCAR Cup race. Year after year, the RCR team excelled with its fast times and flawless performances. The few who drew a full-time paycheck from RCR had one common bond: They were diehard racers with a passion to win. It was all they knew and what truly defined their lives. That mentality was and continues to be evident in Childress, a Winston Salem, N.C., native. He grew up in the sport, working the grandstands at famed Bowman-Gray Stadium selling peanuts to fans watching the local short-track stars, as well as NASCAR Grand National legends such as Richard Petty, Curtis Turner and Rex White, on a bi-annual basis. Childress began his own driving career at the track in the early 1960s, enjoying countless victories and a strong fan following. In 1969, he transformed his team into a very modest Sprint Cup operation, collecting an impressive six top-5s and 76 top-10s in 285 starts, but no victories. Still, his cars were strong - enabling him to mix it up regularly with NASCAR’s top drivers and teams. When Dale Earnhardt, an up-and-coming superstar suddenly became available with 11 races remaining in the 1981 Sprint Cup season, Childress jumped at the chance to get him and left the driver’s seat to make room for the young, aggressive driver. Earnhardt didn’t win at first, but was competitive. He left Childress on good terms to wheel Ford Thunderbirds for veteran team owner Bud Moore in 1982-83, but returned to the small but promising one-car organization in 1984, picking up where they had left off. Little did anyone know at the time a dynasty had been born. The team produced 67 of Earnhardt’s 76-career wins and six of his seven championships in 17 seasons. Success enjoyed during that magical time came from Earnhardt’s incredible driving talent, Childress’ seemingly bullet-proof cars and engines, and a crew that turned wrenches on the team’s Chevrolets during the week and then produced precision pit stops on race day. So good were they at getting Earnhardt off pit road that the six-man crew was dubbed “The Flying Aces.” Horace Simpson carried tires to crew chief Kirk Shelmerdine and Will Lind, the front and rear tire changers, respectively. David Smith handled the jack duties, while Barney Boyd fueled the car with Rick Slaydon working the catch can. Eventually, Danny “Chocolate” Myers was added as the gasman with Bobby Moody handling catch can duties.
“We thought we were pretty good,” Shelmerdine says. “We had pretty good results most of the time. There were a lot of great pit crews on pit road back then, but hardly any of them beat us out very often. There was a certain standard you had to keep up to compete and we did that and then some.
“The pit crew was just another piece of that winning combination. Very few names changed in the line-up for a lot of those years and that was key. When one guy zigged, we all knew when to zag and perform as one unit.” Lind believes the fact their lives came together at a specific time in a specific place was meant to produce something great. “I’d like to say there was some great plan, but I think it was just one of those deals where you put five or six people together who were more opposites than what they had in common,” he said. “We just really meshed very well together. That’s half the battle with chemistry anyway. I think it happens by itself more times than when people try to make it happen. But it was just a group of guys who believed in each other. We were pretty much a band of brothers who spent more time with each other than we did our own families and somehow it all worked.” Lind also remembers how the over-the-wall pit crew was chosen. It usually came through a very short conversation, such as, “You're changing tires next Sunday.” “There really wasn’t any great science to it back then,” Lind recalls. “I got my opportunity to change tires when Larry Pollard left and went to work with what was then known as Petty Enterprises with Richard and Kyle Petty. I was just the next guy in line. It wasn’t like I was any kind of trained specialist to fill the position. I was there and I was a mechanic and the tire guy on the road crew. I got thrown into the mix. My first time doing it, I believe, was in 1983 when we went to Riverside, Calif., and won the thing with Ricky Rudd driving.”
In that era, the mechanics of a pit stop were quite different than what’s performed today. For instance, drivers brought their cars to a complete stop in the pit box before crews were allowed to go over the wall. Second, tire carriers handed tires off to changers and didn’t place them on the spindles. Finally, a third air gun was put into play, allowing work to be performed on both sides of the car at the same time. Even so, a time of 22 to 23 seconds was considered a good stop.
“Things were different then," Lind said. “You couldn’t leave the wall until the car was in the pit box. You couldn’t go out slightly ahead of the car like they do today. The times weren’t even relative.
“We had three air guns back then, too. We had a left-side guy who jumped over and loosened the left-side lugs while we were on the right side. All the teams did that before NASCAR outlawed the third gun. Still, we won the pit crew championship four years in a row and no other team has ever won four, much less four straight.”
Myers, a longtime RCR employee, recalls how everyone on the team had a variety of responsibilities. “We had no specialists whatsoever like what makes up teams today,” Myers recalls. “A pit crew member was the same guy who worked on the brakes, the same guy who worked on the motor and swept the floor. Everybody did everything.” Smith worked extremely hard to perfect his role as jackman, as the entire stop started with his ability to get the car in the air faster than anyone else. He worked with jack developer George Brunnhoelzl to perfect a jack that was lighter and faster for pit road. “I was the first to use a one-pump jack,” Smith says. “We started with a three-quarter pump in the jack that needed was five or six pumps to get the car in the air. Then, we went to a seven-eighths pump that needed only three or four pumps. Then we went to a one-inch pump. It was a bear to get pumped but I could do it in one pump. That cut off several seconds in the pits. We put a longer handle on it for better leverage. And over time, we also made the jacks lighter. “Having Dale Earnhardt as our driver was a big plus, but we did our part to beat other cars off pit road. We did that consistently. When Earnhardt came down pit road in third or fourth, we would most times have him coming out first or second. We all worked well together and just knew what the other guy was doing. We just made it happen.” Smith, a one-time crew chief for Earnhardt, was one of the first to recognize the need to train pit crews. He initially developed and perfected the basic program that all Sprint Cup teams use today.
“There are a lot more trained athletes out there now,” Smith continued. “As I got older, I started working out on my own and I felt stronger and more in shape. I knew to compete with the younger guys, I was going to have to. The guys today train hard and work hard. I spent a lot of time watching race tapes to make me a better jackman. [Teams now film their stops.] I also watched the tire carriers and tire changers because when I retired as a jackman, I was also Dale’s crew chief. From 1999 until 2005 when I left RCR, I was the pit crew manager and trainer. So I was working on the routines for those guys. I hired a regular trainer so those guys would be fit, eat right and not be tired out during races.”
“The Flying Aces set the standard for a lot of the other pit crews,” said Danny Lawrence, chief engine builder for RCR in the 1980s. “It was kind of like watching Tiger Woods play golf when they pitted a car. He doesn’t ever look like he’s in a hurry and they never did, either. Today, they use lighter aluminum jacks and better air sockets, etc. Then, it was just the ability of the guys to get the job done. Earnhardt was really good at getting in on pit road, but there was no pit road speed in those days. But we never seemed to have loose wheels because the boys didn’t make mistakes. Those guys had a lot invested in the race because they also worked on the cars. They didn’t fly guys in to change tires back then. They were the guys over the wall.”
Myers adds there was one important piece of the equation that glued the team together. “We were best of friends then and we’re still the best of friends today,” Myers says. “It wasn’t that we just liked each other, we loved each other. “I think what made the team so good was Richard Childress and Dale Earnhardt. They didn’t hesitate for one minute to give us what we needed to win. Richard was right there with us when we got there in the morning and when we left to go home at night. Sometimes, he was there longer than us and Dale was the same way. Those were two guys who never gave up whatsoever. Because of those guys, we just gave it all we had.”
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: THE EARLY YEARS
8/24/10
EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: THE EARLY YEARS
(This is the first in a series of four stories about how the pit stop has evolved in stock car racing over the past 60 years. Presented by TUMS, the number one antacid in America, award-winning motorsports writer Ben White chronicles the changes that have made a pit stop an art form and the people responsible for that transformation. The NASCAR Hall of Fame hosted the “Evolution of the Pit Stop” press conference on Tuesday, August 24 at 2 p.m.).
On the Sunday afternoon of June 19, 1949, NASCAR’s first ever Strictly Stock race was held on a small, dirt track just off Wilkerson Boulevard in Charlotte, N.C. Since that fateful day, pit crews have serviced cars during races on a variety of track configurations throughout the nation. In more than six decades of racing, it has become a science and an art form.
Pit stops have become an important part of the sport, just as baseball games feature home runs and football has its 100-yard fields. Initially, however, pit stops weren't that important when stock car racing first came to prominence in America following World War II. At that time, moonshiners in the North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee mountains raced cars more for bragging rights than for money in hastily organized events on vacant cow pastures and open farmland.
Rules, if there were any, varied greatly from region to region and often were open for interpretation with many gray areas. Mechanics and those who owned the cars struggled to define them, often causing confusion and anger after races had been completed.
Race promoters would, at times, organize events and announced a purse to be paid, only to scurry off the premises with gate proceeds before the race was completed.
After seeing his fair share of dirty dealings and unfair actions on and off the track, race promoter and eventual NASCAR president Bill France, Sr., called a meeting of drivers, owners, promoters and mechanics in December 1947 and asked for their ideas to build stock car racing into a respected and legitimate professional sport. Once the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing – NASCAR – was incorporated the following February in Daytona Beach, Fla., a structured point system emerged, a uniform set of rules were established and drivers could depend on the purse being paid.
In NASCAR’s fledgling years, many races were 100 miles or less in length on dirt tracks carved by the Hudsons, Desotos, Fords and Mercurys that were driven on them. The so-called race cars of the 1950s came straight out of home garages, put into service after stops at local corner gas stations for fuel, water, tape over headlights, and a leather belt to keep the doors from flying open. The last touch was door and roof-top numbers applied via the use of white shoe polish.
Putting cars designed for highway use to the test through higher speeds and sharper turns meant service had to be ready at a moment’s notice. That resulted in friends and family often being called upon to help turn wrenches when engines broke, when tires went flat and radiators steamed hot.
Dubbed “pit crews” for the deep work pits used in old-fashioned garages, they quickly became an important part of the race-day dynamic. They discovered in NASCAR's early days that positions lost on the track could be gained back with fast stops on pit road.
“In the beginning, pit stops were rather chaotic,” says Buz McKim, historian for the newly opened NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C. “It was pretty much done by neighbors of the driver or team owner looking for a way to get into the race for free. Pit stops weren't choreographed with any degree of real organization until the 1960s. Over time, crew members became quite a bit more specialized as far as their duties on race day, such as changing tires, carrying tires, filling cars with fuel and cleaning windshields. But in the beginning, there was very little polish during a pit stop in NASCAR.”
Crew chiefs or chief mechanics, as they were initially known, answered the mechanical needs on race day the best way they knew how by using merger tools that were very primitive by today’s pit crew standards.
Leonard Wood, chief mechanic for the famous Fords fielded by the Wood Brothers, was a huge part of the team’s 96-career victories dating back to 1953 when the organization was formed.
Over time, drivers and crews discovered quick work in the pits was vital for making up positions lost in the race. Along with his ability for building strong race-winning engines, Wood is considered someone who first recognized and developed fast stops on pit road. His ideas pioneered the astounding 12-second stop often seen today.
“Back in those days, we had a four-lug wrench for taking off lug nuts,” Wood says. “There was a lot of emphasis on making sure it was balanced so the lugs would spin on and off nicely. We continued working where you could do it with one hand. It would spin on real fast and off real fast. But if that wrench was wobbling or not balanced, it wouldn’t spin off very fast and you’d lose time. There was a lot of emphasis put into it, but without that, you just couldn’t get the job done. You could sense this was something the crew could gain time with, so we just kept working with it until we got the process as fast.
“From the four-prong lug nut wrenches, we went to power guns. Once we had changing tires worked out to where we thought we had it as fast as you could get it, then we’d ask ourselves, ‘What’s holding us up?’ Then we’d look at the jack and what could be done to speed the jack up in getting the car in the air. Then we’d have the jack worked out to our liking, so you’d say, ‘OK, what else is holding us up?’ Then it might be how fast the fuel goes in. So we streamline the fuel system. We would just work at what we thought was the weakest link and concentrate on that and improve that. But throughout that process, you want pit crew members who really had quick reflexes.
By the early 1960s the Wood Brothers were already enjoying stardom, having won many races including the 1963 Daytona 500 with Tiny Lund at the controls of the No. 21 Ford. They were already known as one of the fastest pit crews in NASCAR when Ford Motor Co. asked them to step out of their element and serve as Jimmy Clark's pit crew in the 1965 Indianapolis 500.
Both Clark and rear-engine Lotus designer Colin Chapman were delighted to have men from the Virginia mountains giving them lightning-fast pit stops that year. Thanks to their flawless pit work and common sense ingenuity, Clark started from the second position and breezed to victory, just under two minutes ahead of second-place Parnelli Jones.
“From say 1961 to 1963, we already had the pit stops worked out pretty well,” Wood says. “Pitting Jimmy Clark in the Indianapolis 500 was a much different situation for us, but we still took the same techniques. We got there and found we had an all British crew that we were working with. Being a foreign crew, we weren’t sure how that was going to work out because we weren’t sure they were going to accept us. Butwe walked in and they welcomed us with open arms. So that made all the difference. It wouldn’t have worked if they hadn’t wanted us to be there.”
The first pit stop of the day set the stage for Clark’s runaway victory.
“We just started working with the car and preparing for the stop. I remember we were going through inspection and this was the first year they had a gravity-feed fuel flow; it previously was under pressure. Ours (fuel tank) was different, but completely legal.
“The official said, ‘I’ll bet you $1,000 you can’t pour 20 gallons a minute out of that thing.' Of course, we didn’t bet with him. We did a dry run and put in 58 gallons in 15 seconds. So we knew each stop was going to be under 20 seconds. That kind of caught everybody off guard. It just got everyone to thinking. You go along doing the same thing over and over, but then you reach a point where you think of how time can be gained here or there.”
One of the greatest chief mechanics in NASCAR history is Dale Inman, the man who built and turned wrenches on the Plymouths, Dodges and Fords driven by seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty. Even though very modest about his accomplishments, Inman orchestrated 198 of Petty’s 200-career victories.
Like Wood, Inman was on the scene when tools used on pit road consisted of not much more than a lug wrench, a pit board, a few tires and a small box of tools.
“Lord have mercy, we might have had a floor jack, but may have even had aregular bumper jack that came with the car some of the time. I’m serious,” Inman says. “There would be times back then with some of the shorter races that we might only change one tire at a time and did it with a four-way lug wrench. I don’t remember the exact time we started using air wrenches on pit road, but that may have been in the late 1950s. It’s hard to describe what this sport has come from to what it is now.”
Today’s specialist-filled NASCAR garage features crewmen dressed in vibrant sponsor-colored uniforms. In the early days, there was very little specialization among crew members. Volunteers were a major part of Sprint Cup, then Grand National, pit crews during the first two decades of NASCAR’s existence.
“We had what we called pick-up pit crews way on up into the mid 1970s,” Inman says. “We used to share pit crews with (veteran crew chief) Harry Hyde’s team at some 100-mile races. We would pit together. If he had three or four people and we had three or four people, we would pit whichever car was out front of the other at the time first.
“It’s all come a long way, but the equipment is what has made the biggest difference. We started modifying our sockets, such as putting springs in them. It was the same thing with jacks. We never had one that worked with one pump, but we did try to make them lighter. At one time, we were changing four tires using two jacks. One would go up on the right side and someone whom didn’t go over the wall would start jacking the left side jack when the right one fell and the tire guys were coming around the car. Over time, NASCAR outlawed thatand made us use only one jack.”
Through thousands of NASCAR events dating back to the sanctioning body's inaugural one, safety on pit road has evolved just as it has with all aspects of stock car racing. Many innovations have come throughout NASCAR’s storied history.
“Fireball Roberts got burned badly at Charlotte in 1964 and we still had gas tanks then,” Inman says. “That brought on the rubber bladders [fuel cells] inside the gas tank. For years, we used a regular gas can and a regular snout to put itinto the car. They now use a dry break system (which lets the gas can spout fit snug into the car to prevent fires). Eventually, the man who catches access fuel out the vent opening will be eliminated. That’s a guy standing with his back to oncoming cars coming down pit road and the guy who is pitting right behind him.” I was there the day Don Miller [retired president of Penske Racing South] got hurt on pit road in 1974. And I don’t remember the exact year, but some people got hurt on pit road the same way at Raleigh [N.C.] Speedway when we were still fueling the cars from the center of the rear bumper. That was a long time ago.”
EVOLUTION OF THE PIT STOP: THE EARLY YEARS
(This is the first in a series of four stories about how the pit stop has evolved in stock car racing over the past 60 years. Presented by TUMS, the number one antacid in America, award-winning motorsports writer Ben White chronicles the changes that have made a pit stop an art form and the people responsible for that transformation. The NASCAR Hall of Fame hosted the “Evolution of the Pit Stop” press conference on Tuesday, August 24 at 2 p.m.).
On the Sunday afternoon of June 19, 1949, NASCAR’s first ever Strictly Stock race was held on a small, dirt track just off Wilkerson Boulevard in Charlotte, N.C. Since that fateful day, pit crews have serviced cars during races on a variety of track configurations throughout the nation. In more than six decades of racing, it has become a science and an art form.
Pit stops have become an important part of the sport, just as baseball games feature home runs and football has its 100-yard fields. Initially, however, pit stops weren't that important when stock car racing first came to prominence in America following World War II. At that time, moonshiners in the North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee mountains raced cars more for bragging rights than for money in hastily organized events on vacant cow pastures and open farmland.
Rules, if there were any, varied greatly from region to region and often were open for interpretation with many gray areas. Mechanics and those who owned the cars struggled to define them, often causing confusion and anger after races had been completed.
Race promoters would, at times, organize events and announced a purse to be paid, only to scurry off the premises with gate proceeds before the race was completed.
After seeing his fair share of dirty dealings and unfair actions on and off the track, race promoter and eventual NASCAR president Bill France, Sr., called a meeting of drivers, owners, promoters and mechanics in December 1947 and asked for their ideas to build stock car racing into a respected and legitimate professional sport. Once the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing – NASCAR – was incorporated the following February in Daytona Beach, Fla., a structured point system emerged, a uniform set of rules were established and drivers could depend on the purse being paid.
In NASCAR’s fledgling years, many races were 100 miles or less in length on dirt tracks carved by the Hudsons, Desotos, Fords and Mercurys that were driven on them. The so-called race cars of the 1950s came straight out of home garages, put into service after stops at local corner gas stations for fuel, water, tape over headlights, and a leather belt to keep the doors from flying open. The last touch was door and roof-top numbers applied via the use of white shoe polish.
Putting cars designed for highway use to the test through higher speeds and sharper turns meant service had to be ready at a moment’s notice. That resulted in friends and family often being called upon to help turn wrenches when engines broke, when tires went flat and radiators steamed hot.
Dubbed “pit crews” for the deep work pits used in old-fashioned garages, they quickly became an important part of the race-day dynamic. They discovered in NASCAR's early days that positions lost on the track could be gained back with fast stops on pit road.
“In the beginning, pit stops were rather chaotic,” says Buz McKim, historian for the newly opened NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C. “It was pretty much done by neighbors of the driver or team owner looking for a way to get into the race for free. Pit stops weren't choreographed with any degree of real organization until the 1960s. Over time, crew members became quite a bit more specialized as far as their duties on race day, such as changing tires, carrying tires, filling cars with fuel and cleaning windshields. But in the beginning, there was very little polish during a pit stop in NASCAR.”
Crew chiefs or chief mechanics, as they were initially known, answered the mechanical needs on race day the best way they knew how by using merger tools that were very primitive by today’s pit crew standards.
Leonard Wood, chief mechanic for the famous Fords fielded by the Wood Brothers, was a huge part of the team’s 96-career victories dating back to 1953 when the organization was formed.
Over time, drivers and crews discovered quick work in the pits was vital for making up positions lost in the race. Along with his ability for building strong race-winning engines, Wood is considered someone who first recognized and developed fast stops on pit road. His ideas pioneered the astounding 12-second stop often seen today.
“Back in those days, we had a four-lug wrench for taking off lug nuts,” Wood says. “There was a lot of emphasis on making sure it was balanced so the lugs would spin on and off nicely. We continued working where you could do it with one hand. It would spin on real fast and off real fast. But if that wrench was wobbling or not balanced, it wouldn’t spin off very fast and you’d lose time. There was a lot of emphasis put into it, but without that, you just couldn’t get the job done. You could sense this was something the crew could gain time with, so we just kept working with it until we got the process as fast.
“From the four-prong lug nut wrenches, we went to power guns. Once we had changing tires worked out to where we thought we had it as fast as you could get it, then we’d ask ourselves, ‘What’s holding us up?’ Then we’d look at the jack and what could be done to speed the jack up in getting the car in the air. Then we’d have the jack worked out to our liking, so you’d say, ‘OK, what else is holding us up?’ Then it might be how fast the fuel goes in. So we streamline the fuel system. We would just work at what we thought was the weakest link and concentrate on that and improve that. But throughout that process, you want pit crew members who really had quick reflexes.
By the early 1960s the Wood Brothers were already enjoying stardom, having won many races including the 1963 Daytona 500 with Tiny Lund at the controls of the No. 21 Ford. They were already known as one of the fastest pit crews in NASCAR when Ford Motor Co. asked them to step out of their element and serve as Jimmy Clark's pit crew in the 1965 Indianapolis 500.
Both Clark and rear-engine Lotus designer Colin Chapman were delighted to have men from the Virginia mountains giving them lightning-fast pit stops that year. Thanks to their flawless pit work and common sense ingenuity, Clark started from the second position and breezed to victory, just under two minutes ahead of second-place Parnelli Jones.
“From say 1961 to 1963, we already had the pit stops worked out pretty well,” Wood says. “Pitting Jimmy Clark in the Indianapolis 500 was a much different situation for us, but we still took the same techniques. We got there and found we had an all British crew that we were working with. Being a foreign crew, we weren’t sure how that was going to work out because we weren’t sure they were going to accept us. Butwe walked in and they welcomed us with open arms. So that made all the difference. It wouldn’t have worked if they hadn’t wanted us to be there.”
The first pit stop of the day set the stage for Clark’s runaway victory.
“We just started working with the car and preparing for the stop. I remember we were going through inspection and this was the first year they had a gravity-feed fuel flow; it previously was under pressure. Ours (fuel tank) was different, but completely legal.
“The official said, ‘I’ll bet you $1,000 you can’t pour 20 gallons a minute out of that thing.' Of course, we didn’t bet with him. We did a dry run and put in 58 gallons in 15 seconds. So we knew each stop was going to be under 20 seconds. That kind of caught everybody off guard. It just got everyone to thinking. You go along doing the same thing over and over, but then you reach a point where you think of how time can be gained here or there.”
One of the greatest chief mechanics in NASCAR history is Dale Inman, the man who built and turned wrenches on the Plymouths, Dodges and Fords driven by seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty. Even though very modest about his accomplishments, Inman orchestrated 198 of Petty’s 200-career victories.
Like Wood, Inman was on the scene when tools used on pit road consisted of not much more than a lug wrench, a pit board, a few tires and a small box of tools.
“Lord have mercy, we might have had a floor jack, but may have even had aregular bumper jack that came with the car some of the time. I’m serious,” Inman says. “There would be times back then with some of the shorter races that we might only change one tire at a time and did it with a four-way lug wrench. I don’t remember the exact time we started using air wrenches on pit road, but that may have been in the late 1950s. It’s hard to describe what this sport has come from to what it is now.”
Today’s specialist-filled NASCAR garage features crewmen dressed in vibrant sponsor-colored uniforms. In the early days, there was very little specialization among crew members. Volunteers were a major part of Sprint Cup, then Grand National, pit crews during the first two decades of NASCAR’s existence.
“We had what we called pick-up pit crews way on up into the mid 1970s,” Inman says. “We used to share pit crews with (veteran crew chief) Harry Hyde’s team at some 100-mile races. We would pit together. If he had three or four people and we had three or four people, we would pit whichever car was out front of the other at the time first.
“It’s all come a long way, but the equipment is what has made the biggest difference. We started modifying our sockets, such as putting springs in them. It was the same thing with jacks. We never had one that worked with one pump, but we did try to make them lighter. At one time, we were changing four tires using two jacks. One would go up on the right side and someone whom didn’t go over the wall would start jacking the left side jack when the right one fell and the tire guys were coming around the car. Over time, NASCAR outlawed thatand made us use only one jack.”
Through thousands of NASCAR events dating back to the sanctioning body's inaugural one, safety on pit road has evolved just as it has with all aspects of stock car racing. Many innovations have come throughout NASCAR’s storied history.
“Fireball Roberts got burned badly at Charlotte in 1964 and we still had gas tanks then,” Inman says. “That brought on the rubber bladders [fuel cells] inside the gas tank. For years, we used a regular gas can and a regular snout to put itinto the car. They now use a dry break system (which lets the gas can spout fit snug into the car to prevent fires). Eventually, the man who catches access fuel out the vent opening will be eliminated. That’s a guy standing with his back to oncoming cars coming down pit road and the guy who is pitting right behind him.” I was there the day Don Miller [retired president of Penske Racing South] got hurt on pit road in 1974. And I don’t remember the exact year, but some people got hurt on pit road the same way at Raleigh [N.C.] Speedway when we were still fueling the cars from the center of the rear bumper. That was a long time ago.”
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