Crewman never gets tired of life in the pits

FONTANA, Calif. -- Veteran tire changer Dennis Terry loves the look on his co-worker's faces when he is in the office at 7 a.m. ET on the Monday morning after a West Coast race.

"When they see me sitting there on Monday mornings, they go, did you not race this weekend?" Terry said.

Race-day flights typically costs teams $1,000 per man, but Terry says teams willingly pay.

"The teams don't mind paying it because if they can get their guys home Sunday night instead of Monday afternoons," Terry said, "their guys will be a little more productive."

Midnight flights. Wake-up calls at 4 a.m. Drivers trying to clip you on pit road to slow your stop.

Welcome to the glamorous -- and dangerous -- life of a tire changer.

Like many over-the-wall crewmen, Terry works a regular job during the week -- he is a licensed landscape architect -- and he flies to the race to work every Sunday.

Terry is a native of the tiny western North Carolina town of Mooresboro, and his dry wit is a fixture on pit road. Because of the draining and stressful schedule, Terry says that a sense of humor is a necessity, not an addition.

Terry readily admits that rival drivers will get too close to him on pit road in order to throw off his rhythm. It is part of the sport.

Sure, it makes him mad. But he also said the tactic can be counterproductive -- if a driver clips him and doesn't affect the stop, it sends a rush of adrenaline through his body.

"It is part of the job," Terry said. "You know a driver is driving through your box to throw your timing off, it bothers you; but when he drives through your pit and you're still able to beat him off of pit road, that is the competition we are all in it for.

"I am more worried about inexperienced drivers. I am more worried about them because they are not as conscious of what is going on."

Terry, 35, has been going over the wall for various teams for 10 years. Teams are reluctant to hire tire changers with no experience, so a tire changer with Terry's experience is worth their weight in gold. It is part of the reason Terry moved to Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 11 Chevrolet from DEI.

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."