The timings of NASCAR pit stops have drastically reduced over the decades, especially since the introduction of the Next Gen Cup car. A crucial cause for this improvement is the evolution of the pit gun that crews use to replace tires during the stops. Here’s a short overview of how the gun helped the sport go from sticking multiple lug nuts on wheels using glue to saving time with a single lug nut.
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In the earliest days of stock car racing, mechanics used T-wrenches to change tires. In the 1950s, pneumatic impact guns were introduced to speed things up, and floor jacks became common as replacements for bumper jacks. During this time, crew members would hold the lug nuts in their mouths and change them one by one on pit road.
This took them a lot of time to get the job done, and one team found a way to work around it during a pit crew competition at Rockingham in 1970. The team decided to glue the lug nuts to the wheel, making way for a faster pit stop. This became standard practice for all teams, continuing in the modern era of NASCAR.
In the 1980s, teams began utilizing nitrogen instead of compressed air in their power tools. It was only in the 1990s that specialized engineers were brought into the fold to improve the pit guns. From that point till 2017, a long and tedious battle over which team had the best pit gun transpired. In 2017, the guns reached peak speed all around the garage.
This was when NASCAR decided to intervene and make itself a part of the discussion. It began providing teams with standardized pit guns in 2018 to cut costs and improve competition. The Next Gen car, introduced in 2022, changed the landscape completely. It uses a single lug nut stored in the pit gun and installed when the car comes in.
This system eliminated the need to use glue to stick lug nuts to the wheel since only one nut was changed, and that piece was stored in the gun itself. Such measures are how teams can complete pit stops in as little as 9 seconds today. In the Xfinity Series, however, cars still use the five-lug design and follow the old ways.
