Red Bull Racing spends all week in training for its pit crew

MOORESVILLE, N.C.

A football flies on a gray, breezy day that feels like autumn in early March. A NASCAR team is holding pit practice, and a football is part of the workout.

Greg Miller tosses spirals to crew members focusing on footwork drills. The Red Bull Racing team's pit coach tests his crew for alertness. Pit road is chaotic, and Miller wants his crew comfortable amid distractions. So he throws the football, and the team does penalty exercises for each drop.

After several completions, a pass bounces off fingertips and falls to the pavement.

"You guys fell asleep on that one," Miller said in a tone that is more Tony Dungy than Bob Knight.

This game of catch is one way Miller trains 14 crew members, ranging in age from early 20s to nearly 50. Miller's athletes, as he calls them, also juggle, ride mountain bikes and watch movies during training. There's even yoga, some tai chi and, later this year, canoeing.

It's not just the workouts that are unusual. Miller's athletes, who include former college football and minor league hockey players, have only one job: servicing the car during the race. Members of every other Sprint Cup pit crew have race shop duties. That limits those teams to about two hours a day of pit-specific work. By contrast, Miller spends all day with his group, looking for ways to help drivers Brian Vickers and Mike Skinner exit the pits faster.

Time is precious, and a fast pit stop can alter a race's outcome.

"The pressure... is just unbelievable for pit crew guys," said Walt Smith, crew coach at Dale Earnhardt Inc. "I've never seen it any worse than this."

Pit coaches from other teams secretly hope Miller succeeds so they can demand that their car owners provide a dedicated pit crew and budget approaching $1 million.

Whether Miller revolutionizes pit road will be determined by what made the Wood Brothers and Ray Evernham's Rainbow Warriors trend setters: speed.

"The stopwatch is almighty," Miller said, displaying color-coded graphs charting his teams' progress this season.

"That's what everything is run by."

Greg Miller stares at a TV screen. A few curious pit crew members huddle around him.

The screen shows rear-tire changer Danny Kincaid's air gun attack each of the five lug nuts. He pulls off the tire. Jake Brzozowski slaps a new one on, and Kincaid tightens the lug nuts. He springs to his feet. About four seconds after hitting the first lug nut, Kincaid races around the car and repeats the sequence on the left rear tire.

A video camera, slightly larger than a lipstick container and attached to the side of Kincaid's helmet, captures the scene. Miller had searched for a camera that would allow him to look over the shoulder of his tire changers and study their hand movements. He can hear a lug nut chatter when it hasn't been hit properly.

It's never enough for Miller. His playbook has about 60 scenarios - plays, as he calls them - that define each pit crew member's role, depending on the situation. Duties change from two-tire to four-tire stops, how much fuel is needed (one can or two) and what kind of adjustments must be made to the car.

Sometimes gasman Doug Newell won't fuel Vickers' car, instead pulling a piece of tape off the car's front grille. Sometimes Mike Metcalf, a catch can man, leaves his post behind the car. He'll go to the car's right side and roll a used tire back to the pit wall.

Miller wants crew members for both teams to be multi-faceted even when the standard calls for specialization.

Both crews should be better, Miller tells them. If they can't outperform crews that spend a fraction of the time practicing, then why have a full-time crew?

"We're a professional team," Miller admonished his crew last month - before crew members reviewed video of their only mediocre performance this season, which came at Las Vegas.

"Average is not going to get us where we need to be."

They've watched "Rudy," studied a John Wooden documentary and are scrutinizing a World War II miniseries.

The early morning film sessions are not a chance for extra sleep even for jackman Shaun Peet, who travels about 90 minutes from his home near Greensboro. Each crew member must take notes and submit them.

Those notes form their pillars of success, short sayings about accomplishments and how to achieve them. There are 14 pillars, one for each crew member.

Miller wants his teams to examine themes from the movies and relate to them. They viewed HBO's recent series on training camp for the Kansas City Chiefs. Miller's message? For his crews to see themselves as professional athletes and understand that they're only as good as their next effort.

They've watched "Band of Brothers," a 10-part miniseries that follows an army company during World War II.

"It's fantastic," Miller said.

He wasn't raving about the film as a critic would. Instead, Miller liked the film's nuances, the variety of obstacles soldiers faced. They must problem-solve and work together to succeed.

"That's exactly what we've got to do," Miller said.

Miller uses such props because he has so much time with his crews. He even schedules 30 minutes of mental training on some days. Some crew members juggle to improve hand-eye coordination and focus - two skills needed on pit road. Others listen to a sports psychologist's CD, and some practice imaginary pit stops.

Danny Kincaid, the rear-tire changer, closes his eyes. His head bounces slightly as he visualizes hitting the five lug nuts and removing the tire. His head again bobs to this unheard rhythm as he tightens the lug nuts on the new tires. When he finishes, he hits a stopwatch. The key is to do this in 13 seconds. Every time.

Miller wants his team to know how long 13 seconds is.

Mike Metcalf said he has a standing offer to work at Bank of America, but he's here instead, inside the cramped locker room.

"I didn't want to go sit behind a desk all day," said Metcalf, a former fullback at Appalachian State.

He's not alone.

Jackman Shaun Peet played minor league hockey for several teams, including the Greensboro Generals. Brian Haaland, front-tire changer for Vickers' team, was a goalie for his college hockey team. Front-tire carrier Aaron Schields is a two-time Kansas high school state wrestling champ.

Athletes on pit road are not new, but their numbers are increasing. They're valuable because they're often in better shape and have dealt with pressure. They're why pit stops are quicker.

"There's no real big gains in the equipment anymore," said car owner Ray Evernham, who built one of the sport's best pit crews for Jeff Gordon in the 1990s. "It's in the choreography and in the physical ability of the pit crew members."

Miller and Ben Cook, the team's strength and conditioning coach, have created a training program that pushes every crew member. Team members talk about destroying mountain bikes during trail rides and running the rest of the route. Veterans joke that the workouts can be so difficult that many newcomers puke within their first three days.

"They make fun of Ben and I all the time; that we sit at home at night and think of these things to do to them," Miller said.

"You have to. Otherwise you get passed."

Many teams wouldn't bother. Have your pit crew take the day off and drive a couple of hours to listen to a former racer?

Gasman Doug Newell asked Greg Miller to let them take such a trip. For a team that strives to be unique, it wasn't a hard decision. So the Red Bull crews headed north to the Wood Brothers museum in Stuart, Va., and talked to Leonard Wood about how that family revolutionized pit road.

Maybe the field trip proved to be only a day away from work. Maybe it was a bonding exercise for the crew. Then again, maybe it was a reminder of what this Red Bull team strives to be.

"We'll spend a million dollars at the drop of a hat if it makes the car better," Miller said.

"It costs us a lot of money to run this department this way with our company, but again, how can you afford not to when the two-tenths of a second on pit road can be the difference between winning and 10th place?"