CONCORD, N.C. - Even after capturing a NASCAR Cup Series championship, the quest for more speed never ends.
That's true for everyone at Hendrick Motorsports and certainly, that includes its pit department.
Even with the No. 5 team with Kyle Larson behind the wheel claiming the sport's ultimate prize at Phoenix Raceway in November, and the No. 9 team taking home the Most Valuable Pit Crew Award in the playoffs, the search for improvement commenced shortly after the Cup Series slate came to a close.
“We know we have the right athletes here, so, now it’s finding the right combination to make it work. So, we’ve been doing that,” said Hendrick Motorsports pit crew coach Jacob Claborn. “That’s been our focus the first couple of weeks this December, focusing on mixing and matching some groupings and trying to find the right combination and bringing along our development guys. They’ve probably been practicing the most of anybody since Phoenix.”
The offseason brings a multifaceted checklist for Claborn and company. While the department's relative newcomers are honing their craft, the veterans are busy with physical upkeep and weightroom work.
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And for the staff, the process of evaluation - one that's almost constantly ongoing with weekly film study - continues. That doesn't just come on the personnel level, either. As the gap in Next Gen pit stop time continues to narrow, and the margin for improvement grows ever thinner, the search for additional time on pit road becomes ever more important and difficult.
"We're always trying to keep an open mind to choreography - is there a better way?" Claborn said. "I think you saw this year whereas some of our jackmen went to different takeaways on the right side, trying to find speed there, we have some additional practice going into this offseason realizing that while they're currently fast in the way they're doing it, there may be a faster way. So, we've been practicing some of that choreography with some of the individual positions.
"Throughout the year as you're trying to find that tenth, we're studying the numbers individually and seeing where guys may lack versus other guys in house. We firmly believe if you're P1 here at Hendrick Motorsports, you'll be P1 on pit road."
To Claborn's point, the organization placed all four of its primary pit crews in the top seven of Racing Insights' metric with the No. 9 team and the No. 24 squad finishing first and second, respectively.
Add the playoff crew honor taken home by the No. 9 team to the championship won by the No. 5 and by nearly any measure, it was a successful end to the 2025 season.
"I thought we finished the season really well," Claborn said. "We made holistic moves on two of the cars and individual moves on two other cars and that all proved to be positive in the end.
"There's bumps and bruises along the way, but it seemed like toward the end of the season, we settled in and had a really good run through the playoffs with all four teams. So, I think we're in a good spot heading into 2026."
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Having said that, the plan for finding gains is multifaceted. Circling back around to the choreography front, Claborn believes the team has identified at least one area where a few more milliseconds can possibly be extracted.
"We've realized that the transition to the left side of the car - from the right side to the left side - has increased in importance. There's time to be had there," Claborn said. "Our initial focus in (the Next Gen) pit stop was to really attack the right side. Now, we're realizing there's time on the left side too in getting from the right to the left. So, we're constantly evaluating what we call, 'dead time'. There's just time in the stop where something's not happening. We've got to erase dead time as much as we can."
And then, there's personnel.
In addition to the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5, No. 9, No. 24 and No. 48 Chevrolets, its pit department also supplies crewmen to all three Spire Motorsports entries as well as Hyak Motorsports' Chevy. In addition, in 2025, Hendrick Motorsports pit crew members did stops for the No. 78 and No. 44 cars, both of which ran a part-time schedule.
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With a steady influx of talent every year streaming into the organization, possible lineup tinkering seemingly never stops. Finding the perfect combination, according to Claborn, is a laborious game of trial-and-error.
"It's not easy," Claborn admitted. "We have a great coaching staff, and we've gotten together and talked through the different personalities of guys and the makeups of those personalities and what would be best to combine those personalities. From there, we'll take that, add it on paper, 'OK, it makes sense. Let's go to the practice pad and try it for a couple of days and see if it blows up right away or if there's potential to it.' You're not going to see in two practices if that combination is truly going to work, but we hope to see a spark that we might be able to grow on.
"So, it definitely starts with us talking about personalities first. You don't want all leaders, all alphas and you don't want all passive guys. You need that mix and fortunately, we've done a tremendous job in recruiting over the years, and we have great people in the department, first. That's our focus in recruiting. If they're here, we know they can do it athletically. We're going to recruit a great person first and a great athlete second and go from there."