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Back Up Front
By: Dennis Terry
Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 marked the first race with our new revamped FedEx pit crew and everything went smoothly for the most part. There were a couple of minor "hiccups" but nothing that our team can't work out with a little more experience together.
The 600 is not the ideal race to debut a new pit crew. Pit stops are tough because half of your stops are in the daylight and half are in the dark, so you have to adapt to a different level of light on every single stop.
I'm back to changing the front tires after changing rear tires all of this season. I actually started my NASCAR tire changing career in 1998 changing rear tires and in 2002 I started changing in the front for Rusty. I later moved to the front of Newman's team and then on to fronts with Truex last year.
When the FedEx team went looking for a new guy to change rears last year, I was up to the challenge. But, with our recent pit crew changes my position has taken a different but very familiar path.
I constantly get asked to compare the differences in changing rear tires to changing fronts. The best analogy that I can give is that you pretty much change fronts in a "right handed mode" and change rears in a "left handed mode".
In the front you take two steps around the car to your right and in the rear you take five steps around the car to you left. There is a lot of heat and break dust on the front tires which slow you down and there is the spoiler (or wing) in the rear to slow you down.
Everything else is pretty much the same, two tires, five lug nuts, twelve seconds... and a ton of pressure to get it right every single time.
DT
May 29, 2007 | Permalink
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Comments
Question! How much input/rules does Nascar have on pit equipment? That is , are you limited to certain types air gun, , jacks, etc. Ever any thought to selfcontained air tanks, instead of hoses, or cordless impact wrenches.
Posted by: clay | May 29, 2007 2:00:33 PM
clay,
NASCAR mandates that you only have two air guns, one jack, seven guys, etc. The type of jack/air guns are up to you for the most part.
No self-contained scuba type tanks are permitted. Some genius at Roush tried that several years ago and NASCAR squashed the idea quickly. Besides, if you aren't skilled enough to work with the air hose, you're not going to fare well with your other tasks.
NASCAR is VERY stringent with rules regarding gas cans. Especially the amount of fuel that they hold and the size of the nozzle. Also, shoes, gloves, helmets, fire suits, etc. (safety stuff).
Most everything is common sense. I've found that the more teams try to over design the pit stops the more layers of potential mistakes that they introduce to the formula.
DT
Posted by: DT | May 29, 2007 3:03:44 PM
Thanks for the reply. Good luck to ya'll the rest of the year> and tell Denny to stay off ya'lls back when you have a lil' screwup. Nobodys perfect all the time, if so, there wouldn't be no need for the body fabrication guys, right?
Posted by: clay | May 29, 2007 3:53:51 PM
Hey DT Thanks for the break down I guess I never really counted...I prefered rears les likely to get hit by your OWN car...and I can't imagine gettin' clocked by that wing!
Posted by: Fan #5 | May 29, 2007 8:20:02 PM
Have any teams ever experimented with "over the top" types of arrangements, like you see in some open-wheeled series?
How much of a hinderance/help would it be if the air hoses were not splayed around on the ground, but came down from above?
What types of innovations have you tried and discarded, if you can say?
I have noticed that different teams send the tires in different directions around the car, some going all front, some splitting front and back. Any other little nuances you can share that we can watch for?
Thanks for your blog!
Posted by: B-Man | May 31, 2007 12:03:13 PM
Ummmm .... excuse me, but that two tires and ten(10) lug nuts ... now, again, about those minor mistakes at the 600???
Posted by: DJSlogger | Jun 2, 2007 12:01:40 PM
Ummmm .... excuse me, but there are two tires and ten(10) lug nuts ... now, again, about those minor mistakes at the 600???
Posted by: DJSlogger | Jun 2, 2007 12:02:04 PM
B-Man,
Having the hoses com down from above is probably not too bad of an idea. Hoses are not that big of an issue though, so I will have to stick wit the Keep It Simple rule on that one. But good thinking.
Sending the right rear to the front is something a lot more teams are doing now because the COT is longer in the back and the jackman has further to roll the tire. But, taking the tire around the front forces your front changer to roll his tire, so your jackman gets faster, but the front changer has to shoulder more work.
That's probably the biggest thing that we've been playing with.
Some teams have been doing a good job with having the gasman pull the right front and then gassing the car on stops where you only need one can of fuel.
The best thing that you can do to get better stops is to put together the right team and keep them together. The top 5 teams on pit road have been together for a min of two years.
DT
Posted by: DT | Jun 4, 2007 5:46:19 PM
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