tool name
closeDodge teams battle to the wire
in NASCAR crew competition
Newman's 12 team flawless - and fast
DAVID POOLE / The Charlotte Observer
Wednesday, May. 16, 2007
Clean meant green Wednesday night as Ryan Newman’s crew hammered out four straight penalty-free stops in 24.66 seconds or less to win the NASCAR Nextel Pit Crew Challenge at the Charlotte Bobcats Arena.
“We just kept preaching, ‘No mistakes,’” said Britt Goodrich, the jack man on the No. 12 Dodge team. “We were able to put it together tonight.”
But it was by no means a breeze for the winners, who will share in $70,300 in first-prize money from Nextel.
In the first round, Newman’s team got a five-second penalty for excess spillage of the water standing in for fuel in this competition. That gave the team a 28.80 time, but Dale Jarrett’s team had the same penalty and lost with a 29.07.
After that, the winners had no more penalties. There were some anxious moments, though, like when Goodrich missed the stop on the right side of the car in the final round against Bobby Labonte’s team.
“You just have to take a deep breath, refocus, and not panic,” Goodrich said. “I was a little behind Tony (Martin, the jack man on the 43), but when I got to the car our guys helped me get it going.”
After each crew member performed his skill at an individual station, the team members ran to the end of a 40-yard lane to one of their cars. The team had to push that car to the finish line to stop the clock on their run.
In the final against Labonte’s team, Newman’s crew posted a 24.66-second time. Labonte’s No. 43 Dodge crew also ran clean, but finished second in 24.99 seconds as a crowd of about 6,000 cheered both teams on.
Newman’s team had other hurdles, too. In the quarterfinals, its time of 23.35 seconds was the best of the competition – and it needed it to beat Brian Vickers’ No. 83 Toyota team. Vickers’ crew finished in 23.84 seconds, the second-best stop of the night overall, but not good enough in that pairing.
Thirteen of the 16 winning teams in the first two elimination rounds made it through stops without penalties. The event’s defending champions, Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 1 Chevrolet team, lost in Round 1 to Clint Bowyer’s No. 07 team despite reaching the finish line first. A three-second penalty for a loose lug nut did in the Truex team.
In the individual competitions, the big stories were two big men with big differences in their approaches to their jobs.
Mitch Lash, jack man on Dale Jarrett’s No. 44 Toyotas, ripped off a split time of 5.94 seconds to win $10,000. Jeff Kerr, who led the Truex crew the title last year, was third, behind Lash and Jay Gallahan from Kurt Busch’s No. 2 team.
“There’s a lot of technique in it, but you really just have to have that ‘want to,’” said Lash, who played sports at West Rowan High School and was recruited into NASCAR by buddies on another team. “You just dig deep and try to bust off a fast time.”
For Jeff Patterson, who along with catch can man Brian Larson won for a second straight year, it was more about guile than grimaces.
“This is the one position in this competition where experience may pay off more than youth,” said Patterson, who works on Tony Stewart’s No. 20 team. “I’ve learned a few tricks over the years.”
Patterson and Larson won with a time of 10.62 seconds. “The whole thing for us is to get to the car without a spill,” Patterson said. “I don’t have to run until after that, and I don’t do that too well.”
Tire changer Nick O’Dell and tire carrier Jason Gay from Kasey Kahne’s No. 9 Dodge team won on the front tires, with a time of 15.18 seconds. Changer Daniel Rankin and carrier Bryan Rockwell from Labonte’s crew were the winners on the rear tires.