CONCORD, N.C. - There's no doubt, stepping out onto pit road for the DAYTONA 500 with over 100,000 fans along the front stretch can be a striking and intimidating place for a young pit crew member.
But several athletes at Hendrick Motorsports arrived prepared for such an occasion.
In addition to athleticism, focus, discipline and work ethic, the world of college football also prepares crewmen for work in front of a raucous crowd both of the friendly and hostile variety. The organization has long been at the forefront of opening a facilitating pipeline between the gridiron and pit road over the last decade-plus, as NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports' pit department are now stocked full of former football players.
As part of an ongoing series of content pieces highlighting the connection between the racing world and college football, interviews were conducted with numerous current crew members regarding an assortment of topics surrounding the two sports. Each was questioned about the best and loudest college football environments each had experienced, and their answers are listed below.
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But in terms of how those experiences prepared them for pressure-packed moments at some of stock car racing's most famous and historic venues, most agree that football has helped on the biggest of stages.
“Going to Daytona (International Speedway) and looking up into the stands, you see all those people and all those flashes and stuff, it’s pretty amazing,” said John Gianninoto, fueler on the No. 9 team and former center at UNLV. “But at the same time, when you’re focused on your task, you block everything out and you’re focused on your car coming down (pit road) and playing football is very similar, right? I’m lined up against this guy, I don’t care who’s in the stands watching me. I don’t care what television network is airing it. I have a job to do and I’m going to try to do that job to the best of my ability. In that sense, I think it’s helped us take those skills from football and move them to pit road.”
Each crewman is listed alongside the school(s) in which they played with their selected stadium or stadiums below in bold font.
Here are some of their responses:
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TJ Semke, Kansas
Toughest environment: Texas
"Not so much the craziest or the wildest but the one that showed how big college football is when we were going to play Texas and we drove by the stadium. I was like, 'Damn that’s it?' And a coach said, 'No that’s the soccer stadium.' We got to the stadium and did a pregame walkthrough on the field and it was just like, 'Wow'. Like, I'd been to Arrowhead (Stadium), I'd played at Kansas Stadium but to go see a school that big, seeing the magnitude of how many people were in attendance, it kind of overwhelms you a little bit. You realize how cool it is to do what you do and stand where you stand."
Brandon Grier, Appalachian State
Toughest environment: Montana
“The number one most memorable one was Montana on the road. We came into that game that year and had a stacked team, nobody was supposed to beat us. Their fans were just as loud as our fans. Their town was similar to our town. We go in, our coaches made us practice outside the entire week. They wanted us to get used to the cold weather. We get out there before the game and in pregame warmups and we’re like, ‘This ain’t cold at all.’ We come back before kickoff and there’s snow everywhere, the temperature dropped, and it came down to the wire. It was one of my favorite games.”
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Jacob Conley, Doane
Toughest environment: Sioux Falls
Man, it was the University of Sioux Falls before they went (Division II). We played my freshman year. Like, you go to other NAIA stadiums and you're like, 'Man, high schools could play there. The capacity of ours was like 1,200, 1,500 people.' And we go to Sioux Falls and they've got an upper deck and suites and I'm like, 'This is pretty cool.' And then we go in there and we lost like 77-6. Our coach, (Matt) Franzen was great because he was inspired. We went into that game thinking we had a shot and then we got to halftime. He's like, 'Guys, let's just make it past the 50-yard line."
Tayvonn Kyle, Iowa State/Virginia
Toughest environments: Iowa State, Texas and Oklahoma
On playing at Iowa State: "Nothing tops being in (Iowa State's Jack Trice Stadium). We played West Virginia at Jack Trice stadium back when they had a really good receiver (Sam James). He was a highlight and that was before I had really started playing. That was my welcome to college football moment. As far as the biggest game I experienced, probably Texas and Oklahoma."
Blaine Anderson, Alabama
Toughest environment: Alabama
"My first, 'Holy cow,' moment - and it was like being on a movie set - was when we had a night game in Tuscaloosa (Alabama) against LSU when they had (running back) Leonard Fournette. He came into Alabama on a roll and had like 30 yards the whole game. The crowd was absolutely insane. It was the most electric thing I've ever seen."
Spencer Bishop, Wake Forest
Toughest environments: Clemson, Florida State and Notre Dame
“Clemson is definitely up there. Florida State – I played in Tallahassee (Florida) a couple of times and it’s always a hostile environment. We played at Notre Dame the year they went to the national championship on their senior day. They had like seven or eight NFL guys and that was the last game before they played for the national championship. And it was back in the day when they had like three-inch thick grass on the field, so that one was memorable. But probably Clemson or Florida State.”
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Donovan Williams, UConn/Elon
Toughest environment: Boise State
“Boise State was extremely loud. If I was standing three feet away from you and trying to have a conversation I couldn’t hear you. The ground was shaking. Plus, they had that old, blue turf they haven’t renovated in 20 years.”
John Gianninoto, UNLV
Toughest environments: BYU and Utah
“Playing at BYU and Utah with the mountains in the background and how that echoes, that was really tough. I remember going in there and we were (using a) silent count to everything and that kind of took me back. I was a freshman at the time and trying to snap the ball and I didn’t expect that from them. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s another Mountain West (Conference) school, no big deal. But those places got loud.”
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Landon Walker, Clemson
Toughest environment: South Carolina
"South Carolina for me. Just a rivalry game. That was probably the loudest place we played. I’m biased to (Clemson) being loud, but I think on the road it’d be Auburn and South Carolina. Those are probably the two loudest places I played."
Ryan Patton, Ohio State
Toughest environment: Ohio State
“Obviously, The Game … that one versus the team from up north. Second to that, we played USC at home one year and in those environments, the best comparison I can make would be to take the DAYTONA 500, Brickyard 400 and the Bristol Night Race and jam them together and that’s what college gameday is like in the Horseshoe (Ohio Stadium). There’s a lot of tradition and history there. It’s very exciting, very loud and a night game is unbelievable. The Horseshoe is a football cathedral, and all the congregation goes on Saturdays in Columbus.”
Hugh Nelson II, Georgia/Hawai'i
Toughest environments: Utah State and Georgia
"When I was in Hawaii we played at Utah state and the way their stadium is set up, the fans are right behind us visitor sidelines. The student section was right behind us. That game was crazy itself. There were a lot of crazy plays, like someone returned an onside kick for a touchdown at one point. But the fans were right in our ears, calling our coach by his first name. They'd done research on all our players, that was probably my craziest welcome-to-college-football moment. And other than that, I'd say at Georgia when we played Notre Dame. They came to Athens (Georgia) and the energy in the stadium was insane. There were 90-100 thousand people just screaming their heads off."
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Jarius Morehead, NC State
Toughest environments: East Carolina and NC State
"I’d say (East Carolina) because they were literally throwing beer cans and everything and just cussing at us. Then (NC State's) Carter-Finley on Thursday night (against) Louisville when Lamar Jackson came the year after he won his Heisman. You couldn’t hear anything in there."
Dax Hollifield, Virginia Tech
Toughest environment: Miami
"Weirdly enough, Miami. I don’t know what it is about the acoustics in there and they don’t really pack that place out. My theory is they actually have speakers up in the top that pump noise in. Because they prob have a couple thousand people there but it is the loudest place you ever hear. And the sideline, the way it is, you go down there and play in September, and the sun is beaming on your sideline it’s definitely an advantage they have."