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There is absolutely no doubt about how important pit stops are to a race. Like I’ve said here before, a team can’t win the race on pit road, but they certainly can lose it. A perfect example of this happened last weekend at Darlington. Jeff Burton brought the field to pit road as the leader with only a few laps remaining. His crew chief, Todd Berrier, called for the crew to bolt on two tires to keep their track position, and hopefully win the race. A mistake during the pit stop though, and the subsequent penalty, killed any chance for a win and saw Burton finish eighth.
In case you missed what I’m talking about, watch the doomed pit stop here. Front tire changer Dan Blizzard struggles just a touch with his on pattern (tightening the lugnuts) and the jackman drops the jack too early. If you watch very closely, you will see that jackman Adam North is watching Blizzard like a hawk. North is waiting for him to make his normal move showing that he’s finished with the lugnuts, which signals North to drop the jack. During his on pattern, Blizzard’s body makes just a small shift in position and North takes that shift as the sign that his front changer is finished. Blizzard isn’t done though and Burton, who is leaving on the drop of the jack, runs over the air hose which results in a penalty.
The normal rule they teach guys on two tire pit stops is for the jackman to drop the jack once the tire changer is at the right headlight. That gives the changer enough time to get out of the way of the car leaving the stall. As a crew works together and becomes more familiar with each other though, those tolerances become much smaller.
Let me show you an example of a very tight two tire stop. This video is of Kyle Busch’s crew, posted to Twitter by JGR Coach Mike Lepp (@mlepp). In the video you will see front changer Nick Odell hit his fifth nut, and make just a small move to leave before jackman Jeff Fender drops the jack. Odell is well short of the right headlight. And the result is Busch leaving the stall quickly, missing Odell by only a few inches.
As you can see from the two examples, the margin for error is very small. A normal two tire stop, which the #31 CAT guys have executed to perfection hundreds of times before, goes awry. Why? The answer lies in the familiarity among the crew.
The jackman sees his changers hit lugnuts everyday. And the majority of the time, they are very good. In this case, both front guys and the jackman were part of the winning crew from the 2009 Pit Crew Challenge. We aren’t talking about amateur or inexperienced guys here. They are among the best at what they do. What can happen though, is the jackman (or any other crew member for that matter) can get lulled into a false sense of security. He’s used to seeing the same thing, over and over, from his guys. This time, a small hiccup changed the normal rhythm. Add to that a little pressure with the race on the line, and you have a small mistake that costs a team the win.
So who’s ready to be a pit crew guy?
They don’t get any TV time and you have probably never heard most of their names, but a position within the race teams that continues to gain in importance is the pit crew coach. Many teams have full time coaches, while others have part time or contract coaches. But no matter the level of employment, these guys can really help set a team apart from the competition.
Since they don’t get much coverage, I will throw a few names at you of coaches at the bigger teams: Richard Childress Racing has Matt Clark; Mike Lepp coaches at Joe Gibbs Racing; Greg Morin, Mark Mauldin, and Walt Smith lead the Hendrick crews; Eric Wilson and Andy Ward lead the Petty/Roush conglomerate; Greg Miller is at Michael Waltrip Racing; Lance Munksgard coaches Red Bull; and Trent Cherry coaches at Penske.
During the week, coaches spend their time breaking down the film of the pit stops from the previous weekend and running practices. Some will also work with their pit crews in the gym, leading workouts and training sessions. At the race track, (if they don’t go over the wall themselves) they will be looking over the tape of recent pit stops and helping with advice or small adjustments during the race.
Coming up in your career, you encounter all different types of coaches. And just like any other sport, some coaches are really good, and some are not. Many come from athletic training backgrounds, while others are ex-changers, carriers, and/or jackmen.
As is the case in most sports, you learn to absorb as much as you can from the really good coaches, and try really hard to not let a bad coach screw you up completely. The good coaches are the guys that can watch just a few stops and be able to see the small things that either make you good or hold you back. They know when to step in with some coaching, and when to say nothing. The bad coaches are just the opposite. They could watch pit stops for days and never be able to tell you definitively what you are doing right or wrong. All these guys are good for, is holding the stop watch.
Coaches do have a tough job, because they are often the first person a crew chief or manager searches out when a stop goes wrong. They have to be able to take the flak from an angry crew chief and translate that into advice or adjustments that will help the crew be better. And like I said earlier, some are better with this stuff than others.
For me personally, it can be very difficult to listen to a coach who has never been over the wall (trust me, some haven’t). Racing is such a different sport, that the coaching means a lot more coming from a guy who knows what it’s like to step off the wall during a green flag stop, while your driver is leading. I’m not saying actual race experience is essential, because some coaches are good at what they do even without that knowledge, but it certainly helps.
As the Cup and Nationwide cars head to Bristol this weekend, I would encourage you to really watch the pit stops during the races. Bristol’s pit road can get interesting, because of the setup and small pit stalls, and pit stops will be very important to success at Thunder Valley. When your favorite driver’s team busts off a 12.60 stop and sends him out in the lead, don’t forget about the pit crew coach who helped them do it.
It’s happened before. And it will happen again. Something goes horribly wrong on pit road, and a guy gets hurt. Nobody wants to see it happen, but we all know it’s a possibility. In the event it does happen though, the teams have realized they need some sort of insurance policy.
For race teams, gone are the days when mechanics would be plucked out of the shop and thrown out onto pit road to service the car during the race. If you read us regularly, you’ve seen me talk about this topic before. Pit crew guys are becoming more specialized then ever before, with many coming from athletic backgrounds. Pit stop times continue to be cut down, and the margin for error grows smaller every year. And as such, many of the bigger teams are starting to invest in backup crew guys for those dreaded “what if” situations.
With the level of competition in the Cup Series what it is these days, it’s vital to an organization’s success that they are prepared for any situation. A team who is fighting for race wins and a championship can’t afford to lose their main guy after the first pit stop, throw some goober in to fill his spot, and then struggle on pit road for the remainder of the race. They need trained, capable guys waiting in the wings to jump in at a moment’s notice and perform.
It really is no different then other team sports. In baseball and basketball, you’ve got bench players; in football, a lengthy depth chart. These backup pit crews serve the same purpose.
In most cases, these crews train just like the first stringers, getting ample practice and gym time. In order for them to be plugged into an existing crew, there really isn’t any other way. The preparation must be the same.
Besides practice and workouts during the week, often times these backup pit crews have their own gigs during the weekend. Their teams will find them deals with Truck teams, NNS teams, or even other Cup teams to keep their race skills sharp.
One documented example we’ve seen of a backup crew this season, is that of Stewart-Haas Racing. The management at SHR put together a third pit crew and loaned them out to the #71 TRG team. The idea being that the team can stay sharp over the wall, but any member can be recalled at any moment to help one of the SHR teams.
Another example of a backup crew was seen last weekend at California. The rear tire changer for Juan Pablo Montoya’s team wasn’t able to go on Sunday, and since EGR doesn’t have their own backup crew guys, they borrowed one from Team Red Bull’s backup crew. If you watched the race, you may have noticed the change.
These backup guys are just another example of how teams continue to find ways to eliminate as many variables as possible. Like I said above, the margin for error grows ever smaller, and no team can afford to be left in the dust.
You may not realize it, but while the 2009 season still isn’t officially over yet, preparations for 2010 have already begun. One area that teams will spend the last few races working on, is changes to their pit crews.
To the untrained eye, it may appear to be business as usual for your favorite driver on pit road. The car comes in, four tires go on, the car leaves. But many teams take the opportunity to use these last couple of races to plug some new crew guys into their teams and see how they fare. Do they gel with the existing crew guys? Are they rattled by the pressure? Could they make it next year? These are all questions teams are trying to answer.
You won’t usually see this from the Chasers, but many teams outside the Chase will tinker. It is inevitable that some guys will stay with their current teams, while others are looking to move on. And some will be looking for a new spot involuntarily. Either way, the teams need to find new guys to fill those holes. These races can give them that chance to see what a guy, or guys, has.
Besides lateral movement within a series, these races also give teams a chance to see some younger guys in action. Maybe a guy is brought up from the Truck Series to the Nationwide Series, or from the Nationwide Series to the Cup Series. Crew chiefs and pit crew coaches can see first hand if a younger, inexperienced guy might be ready to move up the ranks. Some will thrive, while others will need more time to mature.
When you watch any of the races this weekend, the Cup race in particular, be on the lookout for helmets on pit crew guys that don’t match the rest of the crew. Often times, a gray helmet on a team means a new guy is involved. And if you really know your favorite driver’s team well, take a look at each crew member. Do you recognize every face? In many cases, I’ll bet you will be able to spot some fresh faces. It’s just another example of how teams are always working to be better for the future.
I’m going to go on a rant here, so I apologize in advance, but this is something that has bothered me since I started as a tire changer. When young guys finally get their first opportunities to jack, carry, and change they usually end up on Truck Series and some of the smaller Nationwide Series teams. But many are over-matched and under-experienced for the situations they are put into. And often times they will make mistakes that will cost their teams positions on pit road. But instead of letting them make a mistake and learn from it, often times crew chiefs and managers are quick on the trigger and will fire a guy for one mistake. That sucks.
The biggest element to success for a young crew guy is confidence. He has to not only have the skills to do his job, but he has to KNOW he has the skills to do his job when he steps off the wall. If he is hesitant or worries about making mistakes, odds are that is exactly what will happen. Firing kids for making one mistake isn’t exactly confidence inspiring.
What I don’t think some of these crew chiefs and boss people understand, is that no pit crew guy is ever going to be perfect. No changer is going to hit exactly 20 lugs on every pit stop. No carrier is going to stud every wheel. And no jackman is going to hit every post. It’s just not possible. But what sets the really good guys apart from everyone else is the ability to not only minimize those mistakes, but also recover from them.
A tire changer who hangs a lug nut on the right side needs to realize that the mistake cost him time, but that he can’t make it back up. Finish the stop the right way, and then forget it ever happened. If the changer dwells on the mistake and beats himself up over it, he’s not going to be prepared for the next stop. When he goes to start hitting lug nuts again, he’s going to be worrying about hanging a lug. And often times, he’ll end up hanging another one, or worse.
The turnover that some of these teams experience with their pit crews is because of this exact reason. They end up going through a ton of guys over the course of the season and they can never figure out why their pit stops are slow. They are slow because your guys never work together long enough to build that chemistry that is necessary to be really good.
On top of that, I wonder how many guys have given up because of these experiences. They maybe screw up a couple of times, get fired off deals, and then decide this isn’t for them. When in reality, if somebody would have just given them a chance to get a little experience and learn how to deal with adversity, maybe they could have had a solid career.
Before I end this, keep in mind that in many cases, guys do deserve to get fired. Multiple mistakes, especially if it’s the same mistake, warrant a change. And having a crappy attitude and lame excuses won’t get guys anywhere. I just wish that in those cases where it’s not necessarily warranted, teams would give these kids a chance. You never know, they just might surprise the hell out of you.