knute2
11-16-2008, 10:15 PM
Part 1
Week 2 of Pit Crew School is pretty much in the books, and the physical level has picked up, though we have yet to touch an air gun or jack. This week involved learning a lot about pit road, the rules on pit road, pit selection, and every position of a over the wall that pit crew member will perform during a standard 4 tire pit stop. Class always starts in the class room, where me and the 8 other students meet just before 6pm on Monday, and our coach’s arrive and quickly brief us on what we will be doing for the next 3 hours or so. New this week we have our Pit Crew U gear, which includes two Pit Crew U t-shirts, a hat, safety glasses, Knee Pads, and a new pair of Mechanix Wear Gloves, the same ones you see every Sunday that that pit crews wear.
The first hour of Monday’s class we spent outside and did a new drill, this drill involved 8 Goodyear racing tires, two stacked on top of each other around the racecar at each wheel. Two of us would line up against the pit wall and run in opposite directions around either the front or rear of the racecar, when we reached the first set of tires we would pick up the top tire, and place it on top the bottom tire as so it would be standing straight. Then we would run back around the car to the other set of tires, and do the same thing, this process wasn’t complete until we stepped back to the pit wall. However it isn’t just that simple, our coaches made sure we were picking the tires up properly with our index and middle fingers inside the wheel (at about 10 and 2 o’clock), and our palms facing down. This I assume we will learn is the way we will be picking up tires later in class. Then they were also making sure we were properly using our body the right way to pick up the tire. They best way I could explain is imagine yourself doing a klen in the weight room, you are using more of your legs and arms, rather than you back to pick up the tire. Each student would do this twice around the front and rear of the car while getting timed. Again I don’t know what my times were just like last week, they were mostly taken I think to see improvement in the next few weeks. This was more just to learn how to move around the racecar, making long steps, and getting close to the car without touching it. The second drill we did was very similar, but we would perform alone. We would start again parallel to the number on the car next to the pit wall and run around the front of the car to the right rear tire, pick that tire up then run around the front of the car again to the left rear tire and pick that tire up, back around the front to the right front, and then around the front to the left front, and remember we weren’t done until we stepped back to the pit wall.
The rest of class was in the class room, and let me say it was along two hours in there. Everything said would involve with all of us participating through reading or giving our opinions and ideas. First thing we did in the room was learn about pit selection, and the 7 (really 5) most important things about pit selection. First our coach drew a pit road on the white board with 10 pit stalls; this pit road included timing lines and the start finish line, as well with pit stalls that had open exits and entrances. All what coach did was go down in a line and ask what stall to you pick and so on. After the whole class picked, we had to all explain why we picked our pit stall. While doing this we determined the 7 most important reasons to picking a pit stall. The 7 came down like this… (First 5 are the most important)
Start/Finish line (you would want you pit box to be past the start/finish line.)
Easy in/out (as in no pit stall in front of you or behind)
Teammates/Competition (having a teammate near you, and picking around who may be in the stall next to you to try to avoid them)
Timing Marks (you may be able to speed up if your near the end of pit road and no timing mark to time you from your pit stall)
Straight vs. curved pit stall (just like a Phoenix or Martinsville where part of pit road is in the corner.)
Access to Garage / Crew Chief preference (come crew chiefs like being near the garage or a toilet if their picks are limited)
Driver Preference (no real reason)
The next thing we went over was the rules of Pit Road; these rules are from the NASCAR rule book section 9-15 Pit Procedures during Race. This was about 3 pages long, if you have any questions feel free to ask, but they are pretty basic. I’m sure we all know you aren’t allowed on the racing surface during the green flag, who would want to be there? One rule I didn’t know is that after you jump back over the wall to your pit wagon area, you can’t jump back to service the car if something were to happen. You are already considered out of the box and are not allowed to enter again until the car has left. Some rules were interesting learning the small things you don’t know. The most important part of the rules that our coaches would talk about a lot was where is a legal and illegal position for the car to be parked in the pit box and be serviced on. I didn’t know that the back deck lid could be across the pit line and still legal only if the tires are not past the line.
The last thing we did in class was talk about every position of each over the wall pit crew member and learn all the measurements of the pits as too where everything should be placed, and where every crew member should be. A few cool things involved with changing the tire is that the carrier is always to the left of the changer, and the old tire will always be set to the right of the changer. We would learn every single step and procedure that every position would go through. For example the Jack man would first…
Travel to the right side of the car, Peg and Pump
Pull the right rear tire, set the right rear tire behind the changer, and drop the car,
Travel to the left side of car, Peg, Pump and bump, control the left tire, and then drop the car when pit stop is finished.
A rear changer would…
Travel to right side; get into position, 5 off, lean back (as jackman takes the tire)
After carrier index’s the new tire, 5 on, travel to left side, 5 off, pull-toss, and 5 on.
When you are on the right side you the car, you always have to set the tire, so it won’t roll off, but when on the left side, you just basically toss it. We all needed to learn and study the rules, positions, and measurements of the pit box for a little quiz on Wednesday (really a pop quiz they never told us about).
Week 2 of Pit Crew School is pretty much in the books, and the physical level has picked up, though we have yet to touch an air gun or jack. This week involved learning a lot about pit road, the rules on pit road, pit selection, and every position of a over the wall that pit crew member will perform during a standard 4 tire pit stop. Class always starts in the class room, where me and the 8 other students meet just before 6pm on Monday, and our coach’s arrive and quickly brief us on what we will be doing for the next 3 hours or so. New this week we have our Pit Crew U gear, which includes two Pit Crew U t-shirts, a hat, safety glasses, Knee Pads, and a new pair of Mechanix Wear Gloves, the same ones you see every Sunday that that pit crews wear.
The first hour of Monday’s class we spent outside and did a new drill, this drill involved 8 Goodyear racing tires, two stacked on top of each other around the racecar at each wheel. Two of us would line up against the pit wall and run in opposite directions around either the front or rear of the racecar, when we reached the first set of tires we would pick up the top tire, and place it on top the bottom tire as so it would be standing straight. Then we would run back around the car to the other set of tires, and do the same thing, this process wasn’t complete until we stepped back to the pit wall. However it isn’t just that simple, our coaches made sure we were picking the tires up properly with our index and middle fingers inside the wheel (at about 10 and 2 o’clock), and our palms facing down. This I assume we will learn is the way we will be picking up tires later in class. Then they were also making sure we were properly using our body the right way to pick up the tire. They best way I could explain is imagine yourself doing a klen in the weight room, you are using more of your legs and arms, rather than you back to pick up the tire. Each student would do this twice around the front and rear of the car while getting timed. Again I don’t know what my times were just like last week, they were mostly taken I think to see improvement in the next few weeks. This was more just to learn how to move around the racecar, making long steps, and getting close to the car without touching it. The second drill we did was very similar, but we would perform alone. We would start again parallel to the number on the car next to the pit wall and run around the front of the car to the right rear tire, pick that tire up then run around the front of the car again to the left rear tire and pick that tire up, back around the front to the right front, and then around the front to the left front, and remember we weren’t done until we stepped back to the pit wall.
The rest of class was in the class room, and let me say it was along two hours in there. Everything said would involve with all of us participating through reading or giving our opinions and ideas. First thing we did in the room was learn about pit selection, and the 7 (really 5) most important things about pit selection. First our coach drew a pit road on the white board with 10 pit stalls; this pit road included timing lines and the start finish line, as well with pit stalls that had open exits and entrances. All what coach did was go down in a line and ask what stall to you pick and so on. After the whole class picked, we had to all explain why we picked our pit stall. While doing this we determined the 7 most important reasons to picking a pit stall. The 7 came down like this… (First 5 are the most important)
Start/Finish line (you would want you pit box to be past the start/finish line.)
Easy in/out (as in no pit stall in front of you or behind)
Teammates/Competition (having a teammate near you, and picking around who may be in the stall next to you to try to avoid them)
Timing Marks (you may be able to speed up if your near the end of pit road and no timing mark to time you from your pit stall)
Straight vs. curved pit stall (just like a Phoenix or Martinsville where part of pit road is in the corner.)
Access to Garage / Crew Chief preference (come crew chiefs like being near the garage or a toilet if their picks are limited)
Driver Preference (no real reason)
The next thing we went over was the rules of Pit Road; these rules are from the NASCAR rule book section 9-15 Pit Procedures during Race. This was about 3 pages long, if you have any questions feel free to ask, but they are pretty basic. I’m sure we all know you aren’t allowed on the racing surface during the green flag, who would want to be there? One rule I didn’t know is that after you jump back over the wall to your pit wagon area, you can’t jump back to service the car if something were to happen. You are already considered out of the box and are not allowed to enter again until the car has left. Some rules were interesting learning the small things you don’t know. The most important part of the rules that our coaches would talk about a lot was where is a legal and illegal position for the car to be parked in the pit box and be serviced on. I didn’t know that the back deck lid could be across the pit line and still legal only if the tires are not past the line.
The last thing we did in class was talk about every position of each over the wall pit crew member and learn all the measurements of the pits as too where everything should be placed, and where every crew member should be. A few cool things involved with changing the tire is that the carrier is always to the left of the changer, and the old tire will always be set to the right of the changer. We would learn every single step and procedure that every position would go through. For example the Jack man would first…
Travel to the right side of the car, Peg and Pump
Pull the right rear tire, set the right rear tire behind the changer, and drop the car,
Travel to the left side of car, Peg, Pump and bump, control the left tire, and then drop the car when pit stop is finished.
A rear changer would…
Travel to right side; get into position, 5 off, lean back (as jackman takes the tire)
After carrier index’s the new tire, 5 on, travel to left side, 5 off, pull-toss, and 5 on.
When you are on the right side you the car, you always have to set the tire, so it won’t roll off, but when on the left side, you just basically toss it. We all needed to learn and study the rules, positions, and measurements of the pit box for a little quiz on Wednesday (really a pop quiz they never told us about).