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In the pits Flynn gets down-and-dirty to keep crew on track
By Mike Fish, CNNSI.com Terra Flynn is a fitness freak, a former Navy Seal holding his own on everything from the marathon course to the arduous rigors of the triathlon. So where does he spend his weekends? In the pits. That's right, working up a sweat down on the Winston Cup pit road. During the week, Flynn is "pit crew coach" -- a relatively new title to the sport -- for the race team of high school buddy Ray Evernham. Come race day, working on the crew of Bill Elliott's No. 9 Dodge Intrepid, his primary assignment is handing an 80-pound gas can over the pit wall. If you think the guys working the pits are a bunch of beer-guzzling motorheads, guess again. It's a new day, fueled by escalating dollars, where near every race team has its own weight-room for guys to pump iron and vitamin supplements are a staple of many a jackman and tire changer. A pit crew can help eke out a victory like Dale Jarrett learned recently with late-race excellence at Darlington and Fort Worth. Or, it can be benched mid-race -- as Johnny Benson's crew discovered after botching a Darlington pit stop. Team owner Joe Gibbs, an old football coach, employs a fulltime trainer to sharpen his five race teams. The end result? "We've dropped four seconds a [pit] stop since I've been in the sport," Gibbs said. Over at Petty Enterprises, a fulltime job is held by fitness guru Mark Mauldin, a former assistant football coach at the University of Catawba.
The crew working Sundays for Elliott counts three former college football players -- including 6-foot-3, 280 pound jackman Mark Jacobs, an All-SEC defensive tackle at Kentucky and the school leader in games played. Ryan Buscaglio, a Lenoir-Rhyne College linebacker, followed teammate Heath Cherry to a pit-crew tryout as a lark. Now, they work together on the Elliott crew -- Buscaglio the front tire carrier, Cherry the rear tire carrier. "It seems to be the trend to go after football players," said Flynn, a 22-year Navy veteran. "You want your tire changers to be real nimble -- quick hands, quick feet, good agility. The tire carriers may be a little beefier. Certainly, the jack man and gas man have to have a fair amount of upper body strength." Or as Gibbs says, "You look for young athletes. At the same time, you also need experience. When these guys go over the wall, there's a lot more to it than just having athletic ability." That's why a fair number of pit crew guys also work in the race team's shop during the week, holding down jobs as mechanics, sheet-metal fabricators and such. It translates to long hours and near endless weekends on the road. And it's particularly taxing for the first-year Evernham crews, where everything from the owner to the drivers to the car manufacturer is new. Typically, the crews servicing the Elliott and Casey Atwood cars leave the garage in Statesville, N.C., well before dawn Sunday race mornings, boarding one of two private planes leased by Evernham. They bolt the speedway as soon as possible after a Winston Cup race for the return trip. For the early season flight to Atlanta, Flynn says it was "wheels up" at 4 o'clock Sunday morning. A week earlier for the Las Vegas race, between commuting and work at the track, the team was up 36 consecutive hours. The pit-crew pay for most full-time employees is factored into their regular check. For those hired exclusively for race day, an afternoon in the pits is worth about $400. "The phrase 'team work' is kind of overused, but people don't understand the true down-and-dirty it takes to be a good, solid [pit] team," Flynn said. "It's not all hunky-dory and 'Let's show up Sunday at the race, have a good pit stop and say goodbye to each other.' You go through adversity together. "We have guys with civilian jobs, who have to be flexible with their schedule and jump through hoops to get here for practice. We have guys busting their tails as full-time employees, building race cars and stuff. They come out for pit practice. Some of them haven't had a day off in probably two months." The goal, come race day, is to turn sub-15 second pit stops. That's taking on the standard four tires and two cans of gas. And you don't get that slick by just showing up. At Evernham, the crews try to work in three practices a week, along with logging 30 minutes a day in the weight room. Tire changers will often hit upwards of 50 lugnuts before practice. Then, the crew will run through an assortment of scenarios they may confront on race day. "We generally do circuit workouts -- six or seven different [lifting] stations, as many reps as you can do in 30 seconds and then take 30 seconds off," Flynn said. "The big thing is to do super sets. It's about quickness, agility and strength. Even more than that, it's good for mental toughness. "When you're out here on a hot day, doing six or seven pit stops, that's when it's really going to pay dividends for us." Of course, as the race season rolls into summer, teams back off weight training to keep their guys fresh. At Petty Enterprises, Mauldin negotiated a deal with Advocare to supply vitamins for the team. The fitness guru also maintains a blood profile on each member. "I know my guys really well," Mauldin said. "I know that come Sunday our tire changer might need one vitamin while our driver might need another." Flynn hasn't got it down to such a science yet. He didn't see a NASCAR race until three seasons ago and only retired from the Navy seals last month, though the government cut him a deal where he could leave his Washington administrative post in January to join Evernham's team. His connection to racing is the friend from his days at Raritan High in Hazlet, N.J. Flynn reached out to congratulate Evernham, then a crew chief, when he and Jeff Gordon began dominating the circuit a few years back. And when Evernham started his own team, he called with the job offer. The volume of physical conditioning for the Seals versus guys toiling weekends in the pits doesn't compare. But then, pit road has enough danger to jack the adrenalin. You have cars frantically rolling in and out of pit stops. You have 110 octane gas, sparks flying from the guy hitting the lugnuts and a potential flash fire. You have danger all about, if you're not careful. It was never more evident than when tire carriers on Sterling Marlin's crew -- Darren Wolfe and Rick Reling -- were sent airborne after being struck by Rusty Wallace's car during a pit stop at the Harrah's 500 in Texas. They both sustained ankle injuries, but finished the race in the pits. "One of the things I'm most proud of in my Naval career is nobody has ever gone down on my watch," Flynn. "I can tell you, this isn't an office job, either. It's a fast-paced dangerous world, especially on race day with people trying get in and out of pits and adrenalin pumping."
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