Since its inception, the Nextel Pit Crew Challenge has become a great way to find out who the best pit crews are in NASCAR. It's a unique challenge that pits crews head-to-head in a test of skill and strength. While the UPS Team did not win the overall grand prize, the team jackman, Mitch Lash, took home top honors in the individual competitions.
This year's event took place at the Charlotte Bobcats Arena in downtown Charlotte on Wednesday, May 16. The teams competing were the same as those guaranteed a spot in the Nextel All-Star Challenge race on Saturday, May 19. With Dale Jarrett's 1999 NASCAR Cup Championship, his #44 UPS pit crew was invited to compete.
Inside the Bobcats arena, friends, family and fans were all ready to cheer on their favorite teams. The arena floor was split in half, with four work stations and a 40-yard strip down the middle. Each workstation was equipped for the separate jobs of each pit crew. The four stations included one for the jack man, one for the gas man and catch can man, one for the front tire changer and carrier, and one for the rear tire changer and carrier.
The challenge pitted 24 crews against each other in a bracket-style tournament where the fastest of each head-to-head pairing advanced to the next round. The challenge for each team was for all seven crew members to complete their individual tasks simultaneously and then push their race car down the 40-yard strip. Each crew member was timed on their task, while the team was timed collectively for their effort.
The #44 UPS crew, seeded 23rd in the competition, was made up of the following seven guys - John Moyer (front tire changer), Chris Boller (front tire carrier), Greg Osborne (rear tire changer), Troy Prince (rear tire carrier), Mitch Lash (jack man), Bob Tracey (gas man), and Brian Worthington (catch can man). The UPS crew was matched up against the 15th-seeded #12 crew of Ryan Newman in the second pairing of the first round.
After their runs, both crews were assessed a five-second penalty for excess fuel spillage during the stop. With their penalty, the #44 crew narrowly lost to the #12 crew by only 0.27 seconds with an overall time of 29.07 seconds. It was a valiant effort for a group of guys that have endured through a rough start of the 2007 season.
The best part of the evening for the #44 crew came when Lash was rewarded with a $10,000 prize for being the fastest jack man of the evening with a time of 5.94 seconds, a new record in raising both sides of the car.
"There's a lot of technique in it, but you really just have to have that 'want to' attitude," said Lash, who grew up playing sports at West Rowan High School and was recruited into NASCAR by buddies on another team. "You just dig deep and try to bust off a fast time."
The #44 UPS/MWR team put together one of the fastest times of all the teams eliminated in the first two rounds. Along with Lash's individual award, the team was able to find solace in the fact that the #12 crew they lost to in the first round progressed penalty-free throughout the remainder of the competition to become the 2007 Nextel Pit Crew Challenge Champions.
