Pit work ‘more competitive than football' 

Wednesday, May. 13, 2009

Dion Williams played linebacker at Wake Forest and spent one season with the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL.

Now he carries tires over the wall as a member of Mark Martin's race-day pit crew.

Which one provides the biggest rush?

“(This) is more competitive than football,” Williams said during a break in preparing to join his teammates in the Pit Crew Challenge tonight at 7 in Time Warner Cable Arena.

“In football, you can rely on your teammates a lot. With a pit crew, you can't make any mistakes. There are four downs in football. If you mess up a pit stop, it can end your night.”

The Pit Crew Challenge has become a Super Bowl of sorts for crew members, who rarely get the glory associated with race days.

There is team and individual competition tonight while all the drivers can do is sit and watch.

For Williams, it is like a race day but, in some ways, even bigger.

“This event makes and breaks careers,” he said. “If you win the championship and then go looking for a job, you almost don't need a resume. We take this very seriously. It's about who can do it under pressure.”

Born and raised in Atlanta, Williams knew there was a race track just outside the city limits, but that was all he knew about it. He'd heard of Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., but football was at the center of his life.

Williams was at Wake Forest from 1999 through 2003, then signed a free-agent contract with the Vikings. He played in three games before a concussion – his seventh – convinced him it was time to do something else.

At Hickory Speedway one evening, Williams was introduced to a new life.

“I was a pretty big guy and being African-American, I was going through the pits and guys were saying, ‘What are you doing here?'” he said.

He was with Bobby Knauss, a driver, and he met Phil Horton, a pit crew coach and motivational speaker who showed him about life in the garage and behind the pit wall.

Williams was intrigued and, before long, he was working for Chip Ganassi Racing. From there, he moved to Petty Enterprises and then to Hendrick Motorsports.

He was jack man and tire carrier for Jeff Gordon's team last year and now is the rear-tire carrier for Martin's team, which has won twice recently. In addition to carrying the right rear tire over the wall on stops (the left tire is kept at the pit wall), Williams is responsible for making any wedge or track-bar adjustments during stops.

He said he and crew members spend four hours a day, four days a week practicing pit stops and training. He does weight work and runs, working on strength and explosiveness.

When the moment comes to work on race days, success is measured in tenths of seconds.

“You have to clear your head and focus on your training and fundamentals,” Williams said. “It's like a dance move. You learn it and do it over and over. There's a lot of concentration involved.”

Tonight, it's time to dance.

Disclaimer