CONCORD N.C. - Despite heavy rain on Thursday, Hendrick Motorsports held its 13th-annual pit crew combine looking for new talent.
NASCAR is a team sport and nowhere is that more evident than with the pit crew. Playing a crucial role in any team's race, a pit crew has to be effective, precise and fast. An average NASCAR race sees between four and 12 pit stops with the average pit stop time now checking in under 10 seconds. With the gap between the fastest and slowest crews ever narrowing and with green-flag passes at a premium in the Next Gen era, time on pit road may have never been more precious than now.
Since 2012, the Hendrick Motorsports combine has allowed many athletes and talents from different places around the country to join the team. Pit development coach Keith Flynn has seen the program grow with more and more potential candidates arriving each year.
"I think we got them from a little bit more of a wide-ranging area," Flynn said. "We covered the whole country, something that was really good for us is we went to the Big 12 Conference and did a lot of recruiting out there. So, we got a lot of guys coming from out that way. And they've come here and done a really nice job, and I think we're going to find some really fine prospects out of this group."
"We have roughly 60 guys trying out today," pit development manager, Evan Kureczka added. "We'll break that down. When we come back, we'll take the 60, and we'll narrow it down after today to about 15 or so and bring them back for our minicamp in July."
Wake Forest, Georgia State, BYU, Duke and Kansas State are just a few of the schools represented in this year's crop of prospects.
"Majority of the recruits we get are football players, but we've gotten athletes from wrestling, baseball, soccer, basketball and swimming in years past," Kureczka said.
Much like the National Football League's combine, athletes are tested on their agility, strength and speed to help the coaches gauge how well they can perform in different areas. In the world of NASCAR, that is in the pit box.
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Head pit coach Jacob Claborn is in charge of leading his team and getting them to perform to the best of their abilities in and out of the box. His coaching philosophy not only applies to the current pit crew line up, but to all recruits hoping to make the team.
"I think this is one of my most fun days of the year, having these guys come in," Claborn said. "Most of them don't know a thing about cars with pit crews. So, being able to just go from the basics with these guys and everything that we try to do in the pit department is push performance. We want to push performance to the next level, and that goes into our recruiting process. We've got to bring people in that are going to be the next guy, right? You're going to be the next person that can compete in an incredible high level. And they need to come in and compete right away, because that builds competition with guys that are already here. And I'm a firm believer that competition breeds success. So, we have to just keep pushing the needle on the recruiting side so that we can push our guys that are currently here to be even better than what they are.
"The pit stop has definitely become athlete focused, and we know that we need to have athletes that can get around the car incredibly well first, and then we'll teach them how to be pit crew members. We'll teach them parts in the car. We'll teach them the equipment after that. But they have to be able to physically do the stop first and then we'll teach them to rest after that."
Former scout for the Buffalo Bills and the Carolina Panthers, Rob Hanrahan is now the pit department project supervisor. After joining in mid-April, he brings his football knowledge to the shop, which helps in choosing new pit crew members.
"I think the biggest thing we try to get out of the combine would be just overall athleticism," Hanrahan said. "So, when we're talking about athletes and everybody's athleticism. We're talking about just their abilities to bend, their ability to redirect or ability to stay under control through change of direction.
"A lot of times we'll hear the words like quick twitch, explosiveness and just kind of a combination of all that movement wise. So, you try to put it in as many different drills as you can to see those traits, and then also compare one to the other, one after the other, and then look at them as competitors. The biggest thing you want is to compete on the race track, to compete on pit road."
Flynn elaborated further before the team went to the practice pit box.
"Number one and most important, they have got to prove themselves to be a great teammate. So, when we evaluate them here, and then when we talk to the guys that worked with them in their past experiences, those coaches need to say some really good things about them and the fact that they're going to be a great teammate," Flynn elaborated. "Number two, they've got to be coachable. They've got to learn new tasks in a new athletic movement, so they've got to be coachable, they've got to be teachable. And the third and final thing is, they've got to be able to thrive under pressure.
"We're looking for those guys, that want pressure, that have a mindset that pressure is a privilege. And those are the guys that were looking for, those are the three traits we want to see. They're all going to be super athletic, and we'll weed out the ones that are not, but those three traits are super important, and what we want to see."
Underlying the process is the team's desire to make sure all of its recruits know that they are cared for and respected.
"Yeah, I think that honestly starts with Mr. Hendrick in what he leads, right? Because ultimately, he's the one that sets that example and we do the same thing," Kureczka said. "But, I think, honestly, it's just, 'How you carry yourself every day?' And you show them that you truly care. You don't just speak it. You walk the walk, right? Like, getting to know them and developing that one-on-one relationship, that shows them that we care. If you can develop that relationship with them, then they know that means they are more than just the number that's on their back trying out."
"Yeah, so I think our job as coaching staff, is to challenge our guys, to challenge our guys physically and mentally, every single day, put them in situations that are going to help them succeed," Claborn concluded. "We believe that because we care for our guys, we can hold guys to a high standard, right? They know we care, so we can push the performance side of things by holding them accountable. Because people don't really care what you know until they know that you care, right? And so that's our mindset as a coaching staff. We pour a lot into our guys. We pour a lot into this process of recruiting. And then we pour a lot into them when they get here. And so they know that ultimately, we have what's best for them in mind, hoping that eventually it'll get to the ultimate goal winning a championship."