Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 24, 1993 TAG: 9304240054
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Time's a wastin' if you're on a NASCAR Winston Cup crew. You'd better have changed four tires and refueled the car by now. A 20-second pit stop these days is just good enough to leave your team in someone else's fumes.
"Changing four tires and fueling the car in 16 seconds, like some people have it down to now, that's incredible," said Leonard Wood, who has proven that speed can kill even when the car is stopped.
Not only are the Stuart-based Wood Brothers in their 41st season of Winston Cup racing. In 1965, Leonard and Glen Wood were asked, by Ford, to come to the Indianapolis 500 and pit for driver Jimmy Clark.
In was the first year for rear engines at the Brickyard and one of the first for Ford, and the Indy car regulars derisively wondered what two brothers from the hills of Patrick County could show them about their craft.
The Woods went to Indy one week before the race to work with Clark. The first few drivers who pitted in that 500 got out in about one minute. Clark's pit crew had stopwatches shaking.
"I think our first stop was 17 or 18 seconds," said Wood in the Martinsville Speedway pits Friday.
Clark, who was killed a few years later racing in Europe, won Indy by about a lap. The Wood Brothers were anointed as wizards from over the wall, even in magazines in Europe.
"It's the most publicity I've ever gotten for the least I ever did," Wood said, laughing.
Times have changed, in more ways than one. When the Woods posted 20-second stops last Sunday at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway with the Morgan Shepherd-driven Thunderbird, Rusty Wallace drove to victory when his Buddy Parrott-led crew regularly pitted their Pontiac in the 17-second range.
How much is three seconds in this race within a race? In Sunday's Hanes 500 on the .526-mile Martinsville track, it could be enough to lose your shorts.
Subtracting Shepherd's runaway victory at Atlanta, the other seven Winston Cup races in 1993 have been won by an average of 1.49 seconds.
"One second in the pits means two or three on the track," said Eddie Wood, crew chief for the family's Ford team.
So, the Woods crew and Shepherd drove over from Stuart on Tuesday to practice pit stops at the speedway. Unusual? Most teams don't practice pitting away from their race shops.
The Woods weren't even sure it was permissible under NASCAR rules, but after a couple of phone calls, it was approved. So, Shepherd spent the day backing up and down pit road.
They wore their Nomex team suits. They jacked. They wrenched. They changed positions. They changed jobs. They videotaped. They studied.
"We made 34 stops," said the crew chief, whose voice grew weary just recalling the day. "We changed 134 tires. We had 60 tires lugged up."
And?
"We got it down to 18 seconds," he said. "That's an improvement for us."
Wood said that in a four-tire pit stop, the crew must drop off the jack from the right side of the car in 7.5 seconds to get an 18-second stop.
That's 20 lugnuts off, 20 lugnuts back on. At North Wilkesboro, the Woods team turned a 20-second stop under yellow - and still went from fourth to seventh.
"The emphasis on pit stops has changed so much," Eddie Wood said. "Six months ago, 20 seconds was good. Rusty's team isn't doing anything different. They're just fast."
Teams not only tape their own pit stops for study purposes. They tape others, too. Teams are increasingly using physical conditioning to try and find an edge.
"People didn't used to take pit stops too seriously," said Leonard Wood, whose team had the first 25-second stop in NASCAR history. "Then they realized they were missing the boat."
Timing is everything. Let's say you go into your neighborhood service station and ask to have four tires changed and a fill-up.
"Considering two locations, with the garage and the pump, and using two guys, we could do it in 15 minutes," said Roanoke's Steve Bratcher, one of those men with the star to whom you could trust your car. "If we pushed it, maybe 10 minutes."
Ten minutes equals 30 laps at Martinsville Speedway.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB