Success or failure all in a matter of 13 quick seconds (cont'd)

Bowyer coasts smoothly into his pit box, and the quick work begins. As Wimbish jacks the car, tire carriers and changers scamper around to the right side. Westerberg and Pringle work the front, Dustin Stanley and Jake Lind the rear. When Westerberg pulls off a tire, a huge cloud of black brake dust belches out from the wheel well. Behind them is rush hour on Broadway, with cars pulling in and out, sometimes perilously close. Only the jack man sees the danger. The other crewmen have their back turned to it, in more ways than one.

"That's not even an issue, really. I don't go over the wall thinking, 'This is going to be close,' or, 'I've got to watch out for this guy.' But there have been some cases where you know somebody who's hit people over the years, and you know they don't give people much room, or whatever. You can do a few things to make it harder on them, too," Westerberg said.

Twenty-four teams to vie in Challenge

On Wednesday, 24 pit crews will battle for team and individual position titles in the third annual Nextel Pit Crew Challenge at Charlotte Bobcats Arena putting the spotlight on some of Cup's most important participants.

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"I'm not going to mention any names, but some drivers are a lot worse than others. But I'll give them a chance, and the next time I'm going to retaliate on my own. Not necessarily fighting or anything, but we can make it harder for them the next time."

Like by coming around the car a little wider than usual, forcing the driver in question to alter his entry or exit, and costing him time. The No. 07 crew used that little bit of subterfuge against Reed Sorenson in the April 21 race at Phoenix, after the No. 41 car plowed into a tire Boywer's team claims was safely inside their pit box. Again, they all seem oblivious to the danger. "If he's going to hit you," Westerberg said, "he's going to hit you."

Fortunately, nobody gets hit at Darlington. As Morrison and catch-can man Clint Almquist fuel the car, the tire carriers and changers rush around to the driver's side. Lug nuts fly left and right as Westerberg and Lind remove worn tires and mount new ones. Meanwhile, Pringle reaches around the front of the Chevy with his left hand and wipes debris from the front grille. That's no easy task on the Car of Tomorrow, whose grille is mounted in a recess above the splitter. Pringle has to yank his hand away just as Wimbish drops the car and Bowyer speeds away. Sometimes, he's a little late.

"He's tall and long anyway, but the COT makes it harder," Westerberg said of Pringle. "A couple of times, the jack has fallen with his arm still in there, and that brace on the splitter has hit his forearm because he's trying to get it out as the car is going."

And go it does. "Go! Go! Go! Go! Hard! Hard! Hard! Hard!" Martin shouts over the radio as Bowyer screeches back out into traffic. Nobody rests. Tires are brought to an area behind the pit box, where they're examined by crewmen. Westerberg wipes his impact wrench clean with a rag. Wimbish grabs a wide push broom and sweeps used lug nuts and other debris out of the pit box. Crewmen remove helmets and open bottles of water. And then everyone prepares to do it all over again.

The end result is a good day, a ninth-place finish backed by a crew that helped Bowyer rescue what had been a terribly loose racecar, and make up a cumulative total of 16 positions on pit road. Now comes an all-star week kicked off by the Pit Crew Challenge, won by Martin Truex Jr.'s squad last year. But it won't exactly be the same as Sunday -- rather than have someone drive in and out of a pit stall, as was the case in the old pit crew competition held for years at North Carolina Speedway, crewmen will run to their stations, service a car, and then push a car 40 yards.

"I know they're trying to make it the best they can, but it's not the same," Westerberg said. "It's not a true pit stop. Everybody is on the same playing field, but [a real pit stop] takes the driver and stopping and all that. There's a lot of money up for grabs, though."

Yes, there is. The winning team receives $70,300, and the fastest man at each position receives $10,000. In an attempt to heighten the significance of the event, teams will choose their pit stalls for Saturday night's All-Star Challenge in the order of finish. But for the men competing, there's something larger at stake -- the respect of their peers.

"On Sunday, everybody is doing the same job when you go down pit road. Nobody is watching anybody else, to be honest with you," Westerberg said. "You get to this competition, and all your peers are going to be watching you. It's two of you out there, two teams at a time. I don't know if it puts an added pressure on you, but you want to perform the best that you can."