Chapter 10 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text , Human Resources, Job Design, and Work Measurement, opens with a Global Profile featuring high performance teamwork at auto races. In the case of NASCAR, races can cover up to 600 miles, with cars zipping around the track approaching 200 miles per hour. Yet races are often won by seconds, or even slivers of a second, and a slower pit stop can cost teams hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money and potential sponsorships, writes The Orlando Sentinel (Sept. 3 , 2024).
Every second saved in a stop is worth about 20 car lengths on the track. Last season, the average margin of victory was 1.11 seconds, and it was under one second in 19 of the 36 races. The margin of victory was under one second in 10 of the 23 races so far this season.
“While you are fighting for every position on the track, you can gain multiple spots on pit road,” said the president of Joe Gibbs Racing, which has about 50 athletes in its pit crews. “It can 100 percent win you a race and absolutely lose you a race.”
The pursuit of that edge is why Hendrick, Gibbs, Penske and other big race teams invest millions of dollars to hire and train dozens of tire changers, jackmen and gas can carriers who can work in chaotic conditions on race days 38 weeks a year. Teams are building state-of-the-art gyms and hiring top trainers, chefs and yoga instructors. They are also paying hefty salaries — reaching $200,000 — to sign top athletes and lure pit crew members away from rivals.
The athletes, who included a few college lacrosse players and wrestlers, are separated roughly by body type: bigger linemen in one group, lankier receivers and defensive backs in another, and squatter linebackers and running backs in a third. They are evaluated on 12 different skills and tasks. (At a NASCAR minicamp, coaches collect 49 different data points for evaluation.)
Teams have learned that former football players often make the best prospects for 5-man crews, thanks to their strength, agility and speed. So teams scour college campuses looking for players who didn’t catch on with an N.F.L. team and want to trade their football helmets for fireproof suits. For most of NASCAR’s 75-year history, mechanics, fabricators and others in the shop doubled as pit crews. Pit crews have become on-camera stars featured in Netflix documentaries.
Classroom discussion questions:
- Which tools in Chapter 10 could be used in a pit stop?
- What change has been made in crew sizes in the past 2 years? Why?