As a tire changer I have basically two jobs: take the lugnuts off and put the lugnuts on. Sounds simple enough right? Well don’t forget that during a pit stop there are 20 lugnuts to hit, that is 10 off and 10 back on. So in essence, that’s 20 chances to screw up. And trust [...]
Archive for the ‘Over The Wall’ Category
The Deadly Sins Of Tire Changing
August 26th, 2010 
T.C. 
Posted in Over The Wall 
Tags: Crew Chief, lugnuts, pit crew coach, pit stop, Tire Changer 
9 Comments »The Hard Card Mystique
July 22nd, 2010 T.C. NASCAR Hard Card: The annual credential issued to NASCAR officials, drivers, media, and team personnel. One of the most important articles I bring with me to the race track each weekend is my NASCAR hard card. A hard card is a plastic ID card that is very similar to any school or employer ID card. [...]
Posted in Over The Wall Tags: credential, crew, drivers, hard card, license, media, NASCAR, officials 8 Comments »Teams May Be Facing A Pit Crew Shortage
June 10th, 2010 T.C. With the Nationwide Series and Truck Series moving to some non-companion events over the summer, it seems that I hear everyday about teams looking for quality crew members for upcoming races. It really makes me wonder if we aren’t almost facing a bit of a shortage of pit crew guys. There are a good number [...]
Posted in Over The Wall Tags: Cup Series, development, jack man, Nationwide Series, non-companion, pit crew, pit stop, shortage, tire carrier, Tire Changer, Truck Series 3 Comments »I’m Sorry I Can’t That Weekend, I Have A Race
June 7th, 2010 T.C. At some point or another in his racing career, a crew guy or driver has had this exchange with some friends or family: “Hey, we are going to have some friends over on Sunday for a BBQ. You want to stop by?” “Yeah, I’d love too, but I’ll be at (insert your favorite race track [...]
Posted in Over The Wall Tags: crew guys, families, Friends, mechanics, pit crew, vacation 3 Comments »For Pit Crews, Sometimes Being Automatic Bites
May 12th, 2010 T.C. 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 [...]
Posted in Over The Wall Tags: Adam North, Dan Blizzard, Darlington, jackman, jeff burton, Jeff Fender, Kyle Busch, Mike Lepp, mistake, Nick Odell, pit crew, pit stop, Tire Changer, two tire 11 Comments »Do You Guys Work For A Team?
May 6th, 2010 T.C. Why yes, yes we do. Once the race is over, crew guys and race fans have one thing in common: we both want to get the hell out of the track as fast as possible. Horrid parking, bad traffic direction, and not enough escape routes are all obstacles we face on the way out. And [...]
The Rift Between A & B
May 3rd, 2010 T.C. In any sport, there is no success without chemistry. A team must have it to work cohesively as a unit, towards a common goal. A lack of it can destroy an organization. NASCAR is no different. And one major obstacle in building chemistry within a race team is finding a way to get the two major factions [...]
Posted in In the Shop, Over The Wall Tags: A team, B team, chemistry, engineers, mechanics, pit crew, pit support, race day crew, road crew 15 Comments »Double Duty Wasn’t Just For The Drivers
April 21st, 2010 T.C. If you got to watch the races on Monday from Texas you may have heard the TV guys talking about the drivers who had to do double duty. Guys like Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Greg Biffle, and others got out of their Cup rides and had to immediately jump into their Nationwide cars for another [...]
Posted in NASCAR at the Track, Over The Wall Tags: Cup Series, double duty, Nationwide Series, pit crew, pit stop, spotter, Texas Motor Speedway 4 Comments »Change Is In The Air
April 14th, 2010 T.C. It’s been a big week for change in the NASCAR world. In the span of a few days we’ve had Kelly Bires get replaced at Jr. Motorsports and Kasey Kahne announce his defection from RPM to join Hendrick Motorsports in 2012. And it’s funny, because I heard somebody say early in the week that it was [...]
Posted in NASCAR News, Over The Wall Tags: Ben Leslie, change, Crew Chief, crew members, Kasey Kahne, Kelly Bires, Mike Kelley, pit crew, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 4 Comments »A NASCAR Career Isn’t For Everyone
April 5th, 2010 T.C. One of the most frequent questions asked of myself and Journo by readers, is how one can go about getting a job in racing. In email responses and our many posts on the subject, we try to be as helpful as possible, while hopefully keeping people’s expectations realistic. Racing, at the highest levels, is a very [...]
Posted in Getting a Job in NASCAR, In the Shop, Over The Wall Tags: career, employment, job, NASCAR, Patrick Reynolds 9 Comments »