Another Martinsville challenge

By Dennis Terry

Ask most pit crews about their favorite track and you’ll find that short tracks usually rank near the top.

Frequent cautions mean more pit stops. Often you have a lot of body damage to contend with and the pit stalls are much smaller then at larger tracks. All are factors making our jobs that much more challenging.

As anyone can appreciate, the bigger the challenge… the bigger the reward! I always look forward to Bristol and Martinsville for that reason.

Our Bass Pro Shops pit crew left Bristol with a 13.55 second average (not counting stops resetting the alignment or changing a shock). Our goal is 13.00 per race, but a 13.55 is pretty respectable considering that we are a rookie team still searching for the perfect chemistry.

As we prepare to head north across the Virginia line for Sunday’s race, we hope to better last week’s average. However, Martinsville’s pit road offers its own unique challenges that you may not notice during the broadcast.

Most everyone can see that 1/3 of the pit stalls at Martinsville are in the turns making it impossible to see your car until it is only a few feet away. What few do notice is that pit road is very narrow for the cars entering and leaving the pit boxes. Also, the dimensions of the pit boxes that the cars stop in are, second to Bristol, the smallest on the circuit.

Another little known fact about Martinsville that pit crews have to contend with is the slope of pit road. The pit boxes have a steep slope back toward pit wall.

This slope, combined with low left side air pressures, causes the car to sit lower on the driver’s side making jacking up the car very difficult.

Look for several pit crews to struggle to overcome some of the Martinsville unique pit road challenges on Sunday.

Click here to see how the pits at the different tracks measure up for the teams.