Crewman never gets tired of life in the pits (cont'd)

Terry has chronicled some of the life of a pit-crew member on his own online blog located at thatsracin.com. In his blog, Terry has joked about love of donuts, but the move to Joe Gibbs Racing has slowed his love for Krispy Kremes.

At Joe Gibbs Racing, over-the-wall crewmen can earn significant bonuses for meeting workout requirements. The donuts went out the window.

"When I started to look at other options on pit road, I wanted to look at an organization that has a system in place to not only make me a better tire changer on Sunday, but also to get me physically conditioned so I can be a better tire changer for a long time," Terry said. "It is getting that way.

"For as long I have been in the sport, Gibbs has always been ahead of everyone else in their training programs and how they mix strength and cardio and pit-crew training. It is really molded and based like an NFL team would be."

Terry hopes the added conditioning will give him five more years as a tire changer. The intense regimen implemented by Joe Gibbs Racing is also necessary because its over-the-wall crewmen are typically in their 30s because the team places a heavy premium on experience.

"I have 10 years experience and that is what they needed," Terry said. "You need the experience now. We have been doing it, six, 10, 15 years.

"We started doing it when 20-second stops were the norm. Now we are down to high 12s, low 13s.

"You could find the best athlete in the country and you can't train him to do a 12-second stop consistently, but these old-school guys learned how to do it at 20 seconds and each year they shave something off. That is what those teams are looking for now."

Terry says that the main enemy of a tire changer is a lack of light. For that reason, tire changers prefer day races.

"Richmond, for a tire changer, it is the worst track we go to," Terry said. "It is not very well lit, a lot of tire changers wear lights on their helmets or their hands to give them extra light; when you're down there in the wheel well, there is not a lot of light.

"The drivers use so much brake that these yellow and pink lug nuts are black. When you fire up your air gun, it just blows the dust around. It is very hard to see the lug nuts."