Lee Cunningham experienced something completely different in his NASCAR career on Sunday at Richmond Raceway.
Cunningham, the rear tire changer on Kyle Busch’s No. 18 team, jumped in front of a race car for the first time. As part of the new choreography allowed in the pit lane, where the rear wheel changer no longer has to go around the rear of the car, Joe Gibbs Racing was at the forefront of doing something new. It was something they practiced for over a year and then lobbied NASCAR officials to consider (they even showed them firsthand in their shop).
NASCAR changed course, allowing teams to do away with the long tradition of pit crew driving over the wall. It started two weeks ago in Atlanta, and on Sunday in Richmond, the Gibbs teams put it into action for the first time.
“Obviously I was a bit concerned that I’ve been changing tires for 17 years and I’ve never jumped in front of a car before, and Kyle Busch at that,” Cunningham told RACER. “I’ve always been a backer.”
Adding to the drama, as the sun went down for the entire race (it was a 3:47pm ET start time), Cunningham admitted it was hard to see who was coming down the pit lane.
“(Then the) spotter says 10 away, and my heart jumped a few beats,” he said.
And then Busch almost blew through his pit stall.
“So that’s the worst case scenario for that stop on the very first ever,” Cunningham said. “But after the first one, I was definitely circled.”
Cunningham and his teammates made the redesigned pit stop a success. On lap 234, Busch’s pit crew made a 9.1 second pit stop to go into the record books as the fastest four tire stop ever recorded.
“We have a lot more where that came from,” Cunningham said. “They weren’t even that clean of (pit) stops.”
Cunningham spoke to some of the contestants after the race and “a lot of them say they have work to do. So we definitely took note of the rest of the pit lane.”
The new choreography is optional, and not all teams have gone for something new, even at the Gibbs stable. Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 pit crew made their last two pit stops of the day, and crew chief Chris Gabehart credited her with helping them win the race.
Chris Hall noted that there were 12 pit stops on the 9 second lap at Richmond and seven of them were Joe Gibbs Racing teams.
“I’m so proud of all of our Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew athletes today,” Hall, Joe Gibbs Racing’s director of player development, told RACER. “They played at a high level despite the rest of the sport cheering against them. It showed real mental toughness and I’m really excited to see how fast we can pit stops with four tires to move forward. I think everyone else has homework (to do).”
Joe Gibbs acknowledged how hard his staff has been working to adapt to something new, and he’s also excited to see where things are going.
“I think it’s going to be interesting because we’ve had some of our guys with regular choreography and some with[the new one],” Gibbs said. “It will still be a work in progress. We’ll analyze it and see what we think. That’s the beauty of sport, you get something new and a different way of doing something.”