Michael McDowell’s No. 71 Spire Motorsports crew earned the $100,000 grand prize in Friday evening’s NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Pit Crew Challenge at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
Crew members Brandon Chapman (fueler), Dax Hollifield III (jackman), Luke Bussel (tire carrier), Max Marsh (front changer) and Ty Boeck (rear changer) all contributed to the winning stop at 12.587 seconds.
The No. 71 crew bested Trackhouse Racing’s No. 99 crew (12.600 seconds) and the No. 4 crew (12.669 seconds) from Front Row Motorsports to claim the prize.
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“Honestly, I’m still trying to pinch myself. I think this is a dream,” said No. 71 jackman Dax Hollifield III. “We’re all rookies. We have half our team, this is our 12th race. So we’ve been working hard for the past year, just doing the little things right, and once you do enough of those, things are going to turn out right, you know? We just work on getting better each and every day, and it showed today.
“It’s super awesome. I mean, these guys have been growing and developing,” said Travis Peterson, crew chief of the No. 71 team. “They’re one of the youngest crews at Hendrick this year and we got them. At the beginning of the year, we had to keep getting better, and these guys get better every week, and we’ve started to see the fruits on the race track, too. We put a lot of effort into this, whether it was our setup and these guys coming to the shop to check it, and all we said was we wanted to repeat what they did in practice, because it was an eight-three (8.3-second stop), and that’s what they did. Awesome on them. So badass for these guys.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Nos. 19 (12.695 seconds) and 20 (12.709 seconds) crews rounded out the top five. Christopher Bell’s No. 20 crew entered the day as the two-time defending champions of the Pit Crew Challenge.
On-track action for the Cup Series resumes Saturday evening at 5:10 p.m. ET for the All-Star Heat Races (FS2, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Contributing: Zack Albert | NASCAR.com