I never paid much attention to NASCAR's pit boxes until a crew chief recently told me his cost more than my first home!

"What? Are you kidding me, $120,000? American? Come on," I said.

Sure the proverbial pit box is a huge high-tech toolbox on wheels, it has a few chairs and some televisions, but my condo in Uptown Charlotte had a kitchen, a bathroom and one bedroom.

“

Have you ever heard of Radio Flyer, yeah, every team had one and they came right from the toy stores.

”

-- GARY NELSON

The only shelter a pit box provides is a canopy made of canvas.

But to learn just how far these so-called "war wagons" have evolved since the sport's inception is impressive and almost unbelievable.

Back in the day, grown men actually hauled their tools from the garage to pit road in little red wagons.

"Have you ever heard of Radio Flyer, yeah, every team had one and they came right from the toy stores," said Gary Nelson, one of NASCAR's most innovative figures and the man responsible for developing the earliest forms of the pit box teams are familiar with today.

Nelson's entry into the sport began as a crew chief in 1969, and soon thereafter he developed a custom-made toolbox style wagon the size of an average desktop that held more tools in order to eliminate time-consuming trips to the garage.

"I came up with the idea when we were in Talladega where we lost the drive shaft during a pit stop and a crew member had to run a mile to get another one out of the hauler. A two minute job ended up taking 10 minutes," Nelson said. "It got me thinking, we ought to have more stuff out here on pit road."

From the 1970s to the early 1980s, Nelson had improved his original design and showed up to the Daytona 500 one year with a larger pit box sporting chromed out wheels and precision steering.

"Teams were laughing at us rolling through the garage," Nelson recalled. "One comment was made, 'Hey what kind of dumb mule will you find to pull that thing?' and I remember who said it but I'm not going to tell you."

That original design still comprises the basic principles used in today's elaborate pit boxes.

Then Nelson, in an attempt to better his view of the track, thought to fasten boat chairs to the tops.

"I thought, 'This is a lot better, now I don't have to stand on a stack of tires and I can sit down,'" said Nelson, who in his tenure won two Daytona 500 races, one with Bobby Alison in 1982 and the other with Geoff Bodine in 1986.

And right around the time Nelson thought to manufacture his invention, Vic Irvan, father of Ernie Irvan, beat him to the punch.

"Vic came to my shop one day and asked if he could measure our pit cart and I said yeah sure and he went off and started a business making those things. That's how Irvan-Smith Inc. began in Concord, N.C.," Nelson said. "Story of my life I guess."

Nelson isn't bitter. As a major player in NASCAR's research and development, he went on to develop a slew of technologies and holds the United States patent as the inventor of the roof flaps.

Moral of the story -- crew chiefs, raised on the high-dollar inventions produced today that resemble mini-suites owe their inventive forefathers a great deal of thanks. Thanks for convenient comforts, less time spent on pit road and even a place for the pretty ladies and suited sponsors to sit and enjoy the show, because it is now thought to be the best seat in the house.

Long-time crew chief Richard "Slugger" Labbe is thankful for the technology because competing crewmembers can no longer sabotage his equipment. Some time before Nelson's final design and after the red Radio Flyers, crew chiefs merely set a couple of nitrogen bottles and an air hose on a jack stand and went to work.

Labbe recalled an incident at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis where driver Tommy Ellis got ticked off at his driver Tommy Houston.

"Tommy [Ellis] beat our regulators so we couldn't do pit stops," Labbe laughed. "He beat it with a hammer! If you worked for a good team back then, you had a platform screwed on nitrogen bottle you could stand on. If you had that, no one could beat the regulator up."

Labbe said the "new kids" that go over the wall now don't realize how well they've got it today. "They're spoiled," he said.

The pit box has evolved into a box of technology housing weather forecasting equipment, live timing and scoring and intercom systems enabling the crew chief to communicate covertly with his crew members down below on pit road.

More than that, the crews no longer have to pull their "war wagons" back to the garage after every race.

Since they've grown into these nearly 4,500 pound beasts, they can no longer fit on the team haulers and surpass legal weight limits.

Now, Champion Tire and Wheel is contacted to transport the pit boxes to and from each track.

"That's what amazes me, the size," Labbe said. "And you only use it for about four hours a week and don't see it until Sunday morning. It's a vital part of our team but we entrust it to someone else, we would never think of doing that with our cars. It's crazy to think about."

Crew chief Jimmy Elledge, who has been on both sides of the pit box evolution, said inside the NASCAR garage the mentality remains, "Keep up with the Joneses."

"Every year the pit boxes seem to get bigger and bigger and can hold more and more tools you may never use, but there's a five percent chance that you may use it so you've got to have it," he said.

When he took the job as crew chief at Andy Petree Racing in the late 1990s, Elledge remembered paying $5,000 for a pit box and it was able to fit on the team hauler.

Now at Red Bull Racing, the team custom makes the more than $100,000 crash carts and mini-suites that after each race folds neatly into a compact box to be shipped to the next track.

"With the way things evolve in NASCAR, stuff doesn't get smaller things only get bigger," he said. "But whatever it takes to maximize your time during practice by eliminating trips to the garage can help your performance on Sunday."

So today's pit box is a vital investment that could make or break a team's race on pit road, unlike the "war wagons" and little red Radio Flyers of yesteryear.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.