NASCAR Sprint Cup Pit Crew Challenge Logo » More Photos

Even athletes at the pinnacle of fitness won’t progress to the fifth and final round if they’re plagued by penalties.

“The strategy to win is to have no penalties,” Cherry added. “When you look at the 2007 sheet, out of 24 teams I think seven of them had penalties in the first round. So, automatically by not having a penalty, you’ve got a 50-50 shot of making the first round. One penalty is five seconds and if you blow someone out, you really only beat them by about one second, so there’s no way you can overcome a penalty. That’s a huge part of it, but you also need an athletic and strong team to keep up with the car.”

“The way to win is the same thing I told the No. 31 team in 1998 and every year we went to Rockingham for the event,” said McReynolds, who served as the crew chief for the winning team in 1998 when the event was held at North Carolina Speedway. “You want to be mistake-free but don’t get so caught up in being mistake-free that you’re slow. Be solid and do what makes you good stop after stop and race after race.”

In stark contrast to race situations, pit crews are instructed to sacrifice speed for accuracy, as any mistake, such as loose lug nuts, results in a five-second penalty.

“It’s still about performing your task with perfection and accuracy but quickness,” McReynolds added. “If you’re quick, obviously accuracy might suffer. That level of accuracy would be just fine on race day but the rules are stiffer in this competition and loose lug nuts or spilled gas gets a big, fat penalty.”

The Sprint Pit Crew Challenge recognizes not only the premier seven-man pit crew, it singles out the best in each individual position and awards that man $10,000 at the end of the evening.

“While it’s about the group of guys, it’s also about individuals and how they perform,” explained McReynolds, who shares his technical expertise each week as host of the popular SPEED program NASCAR Performance. “But the end result is about how the team performs and that’s the same thing they face on race day. If the front-tire changer is done with both front tires in 12.5 seconds and the rear tire changer is done in 14.5 seconds, they’ll have a 14.5-second stop. This combines two things: the individual’s performance and the team’s performance.”

One of the things that makes the competition unique is the team who leaves the arena with the paycheck often is not the same team contending for the race win that week.

“I love it when a team sneaks in,” McReynolds stated. “We (No. 31 team) snuck in back in 1998. We knew we could win but I don’t think a lot of other people recognized it. It’s the same with some of the teams that have won this competition. It hasn’t been the normal ones you’d predict, such as the 24 or 17 teams. It’s been the 12 team, the 1 team and the 9 team … teams that weren’t necessarily on the radar simply because they weren’t a 24 or 48-caliber race team.”