The jack man gives it away. Carey Wimbish picks up the long jack handle and begins rolling it through the palms of his gloved hands, again and again, making sure that the movement is smooth and resistance-free. It's the first sign that Clint Bowyer's car is heading for pit road, and 13 seconds of organized chaos are about to begin.

Crewmen slide on their black, motocross-style helmets. Some stretch their arms and torsos to limber up. Front tire changer Shane Westerberg checks his impact wrench, and makes sure the hose powering it has plenty of slack. The No. 07 team climbs on top of the wall as mechanic Wayne Harron extends a long pole with Bowyer's pit sign at the end, dangling it up and down as if he's trying to snag a brook trout.

Over the radio, crew chief Gil Martin counts it down. "Here we come. Here we come. Here we go," he says. "Five away. Four. Three. Two. One. Wheels straight!"

On that command seven men leap over the concrete barrier and into the cauldron that is pit road during a Nextel Cup race, an arena of noise, brake dust, hustle and danger. For an observer, there's no better viewpoint than the photo tower inside Turn 1 at Darlington Raceway, site of last Sunday's Dodge Avenger 500. Almost directly below, the crew of pole-winner Bowyer scurries through the delicate choreography that will be on display Wednesday in the Nextel Pit Crew Challenge, set for Bobcats Arena in downtown Charlotte.

In a little more than 13 seconds, it's all over -- four tires changed, two big cans of fuel emptied into the tank, the front grille cleaned, the car's handling adjusted and sometimes a windshield tear-off removed or a water bottle passed to the driver. Meanwhile, other cars are zooming by mere feet from ankles and knees. It's terrific pressure, and how it's handled is often the difference between a good day like the one enjoyed by Bowyer -- vaulted into the top 10 by his pit crew -- or a frustrating day like the one suffered by Denny Hamlin, doomed by a problematic stop that cost him a chance to win.

"The way NASCAR is structured, obviously it's all toward the drivers," said Robbie Reiser, Matt Kenseth's crew chief at Roush Fenway Racing, and overseer of one of the top squads in Nextel Cup the past five years. "But I think if you watch during the race and the things that have gone on the last few years, they get their opportunity to shine every week. They put the car in a position to win, and I think that's satisfaction for them."

On race day, crewing the car means sitting through long periods of inaction punctuated by short bursts of fury. While Bowyer's car is on the track at Darlington, his over-the-wall guys watch the race on television monitors attached to the pit box, munch on power bars, or pace. Some sit on the pit wall, others on stacks of tires. In their own way they're each preparing themselves for the job to come, the immediacy heightened when Bowyer cues the radio to complain about the handling of his racecar.

"This sport is mental. We're all pretty close on talent. There might be some teams out there less talented than others, but it all comes down to being mentally tough," said Westerberg, a 33-year-old former late model driver from Miami.

"We've tried really hard here in the last year to be mentally tough, not thinking of the outcome of the pit stop, not thinking, 'We've got to do a 13-second pit stop.' Just thinking, 'Do your job, and the time will take care of itself, and everything on the track will take care of itself.' If you go into it thinking, 'I've got to gain five spots,' you're going to fail most of the time. It's just like a guy shooing a free throw. If he goes up there thinking, 'I've got to make this shot to win,' he's not going to make it. He goes up there thinking, 'It's just like practice, no big thing,' he's going to make it most of the time. We just try to think of it like that."

Practice is something the No. 07 crew gets in whenever it can, but time is often limited. Each member of Boywer's over-the-wall crew has a weekday duty at the Richard Childress Racing shop, from fabricating bodies to help setting up the car. There are the Tuesday sessions with pit crew coordinator Corrine Mauldin, who goes over film of every stop from Sunday, looking for areas of improvement. There's strength training in the gym. Many members of Bowyer's crew also work races for RCR Busch cars, using Saturdays as their dry run for the real thing.

And the real thing comes fast. Most of Boywer's crew has been working together for more than a year, but there are exceptions. Mike Morrison, gas man for three Busch championship teams at RCR, is now on the Cup squad. And with regular front tire carrier Dail Long out with a strained back ligament suffered April 15 at Texas Motor Speedway, Erik Pringle has been called up from the Busch series. Darlington is only his fourth race carrying tires -- ever.

No time for rookie mistakes now. After David Ragan spins to bring out a caution, spotter Mike Dillon lets Bowyer know that pit road is open. Pringle -- who's wearing a back fireproof suit with Long's name stitched to the back -- squats on the wall, holding a tire between his legs. Westerberg pats him on the shoulder, says a few words, and receives a confident nod in return. Before every stop at Darlington, the new kid and the six-year veteran will go through the same routine.

"I would just tell him, 'Do what you did the last stop. You're the man. You can do this,'" Westerberg said. "Not that he was nervous, I don't think he was nervous. Just to reassure him that I wasn't going to get all over him if something is wrong. We struggled a little [in the Busch race] on Friday night, but because we were pulling fenders. When you don't have the experience of knowing how far to get the fender out or when to do it, it can be a little bit of a cluster. You have to go with it. On our team, nobody's going to jump up and down on somebody when things aren't right."

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.

• Complete story, click here

"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."