Interchanging pit crew members has not been a new thing in NASCAR. There have been several occasions when the team decided it would be good to have the best pit crew teams handle the playoff running cars. Interestingly, a similar thing took place ahead of the playoffs with Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell.
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The JGR team had taken a gamble to swap crews between Ty Gibbs and Bell since the latter made it into the postseason. However, their decision to change the crews that late into the season may have backfired with Bell’s pit stop timings appearing to be slower than normal in the past couple of races.
Following JGR’s decision former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. also expressed caution considering all the problems it would cause. Meanwhile, while debating the pit crew woes with Bell, NASCAR analyst Jeff Burton explained how Junior’s earlier prediction seemed correct in the playoffs.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s prediction stands correct after JGR gamble fails on Christopher Bell
While discussing the subject during the Motorsports on NBC Podcast, Matt Ryan explained that the pit crews of Bell’s car were not performing as well as they did when they were with Ty Gibbs’ car. The pit crew was ranked outside the top 20 after being ranked in the top 5 with Ty Gibbs.
Later on, Jeff Burton stated, “Christopher was very clear to me that that he had to be better on pit road as well. And I found that interesting like there’s almost like when he got the new pit crew, like it was it sometimes when your pit crew is having a bad stop, right? It’s just not going well on pit road… The pit crew is clearly a second off whatever I’m just making that number up.”
Adding, “The pressure doesn’t get applied in all the other areas, right? It’s just like, we just need to fix that right? And then when you do start having good pitstops and now the analysis is okay. We had the same stop as them, but we came out behind them. What else is there?”
Finally, Burton explained that with the increasing speed of pit stops, there were more chances of making mistakes such as entering the pit box, maintaining the pit road speed, and other factors that affect the speed of the pit stop. The former NASCAR driver emphasized that these factors did matter and could influence the outcome of the race.
What did Junior predict regarding the JGR gamble?
While speaking on his podcast ahead of the playoffs, Junior discussed the decision to interchange the pit crews between Bell and Gibss. He mentioned that having crews that were with Gibb’s team for the majority of the races in a season come down to Bell for the playoff could be “awkward and weird.” With the new crew in place if there were any mistakes to happen all of the blame would be pointed in the direction of the new pit crew.
He said, “It’s not his choice and he has to start building this new relationship with this #54 team that was with Ty Gibbs all year and he’s got 10 races and playoff pressure and all those things.
Additionally, there is a thing about building a relationship with your pit crew over time, and with changes like this so late into the season, it would be a hard thing for the driver to adapt to. Although Junior did mention that communication between the pit crew members and drivers would be the only solution to have them on the same page.
