4 Tires & Fuel: The Pit Crew Report - RCR Shows Strength at Sonoma

Road courses provide a unique challenge for pit crews as suspension setups are significantly different than what they experience on ovals so the motions can often be slightly different. That didn't deter the best in the business as the No. 54 crew of Joe Gibbs Racing continues to show their consistency with another appearance on the charts while the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing crew showed up to Sonoma with lots of speed.

Once again, the competition was tight on pit lane with the spread from first to tenth being less than a second on average:

It should be no surprise that the No. 54 crew won the Pit Crew Challenge at North Wilkesboro as they are one of only two crews that have appeared on the Top 10 chart for the past three races with a second place spot at all three. The only other crew that has had a similar level of consistency is the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports crew which had consecutive fourth place spots on the chart at Charlotte and Gateway and slots in at ninth place for average pit stop time this week.

The fastest pit stops of the day paint a similar picture with that No. 8 Richard Childress Racing crew leading the field with a four-tire change completed in just 9.185 seconds. The No. 5 and No. 54 crews show that they can combine their consistency with speed as they make an appearance on this chart again and Penske Racing shows that all of their crew are capable of quick spots. RFK Racing is one to watch as their crews are starting to climb the charts.

There were only seven pit stops that were completed in less than ten seconds at Sonoma and that No. 8 Richard Childress Racing crew showed their dominance by taking up three of those seven spots. With track position being at a premium once again, fast stops offered more options for the driver and allowed Kyle Busch to charge the field and lead for 17 laps before eventually finishing second. The No. 8 crew that made those fast pit stops happen consists of:

There was not a single pit stall that offered a huge advantage in driver time on pit lane at Sonoma but the stalls that were closer to pit entry appeared to be correlate to the most of the fastest average times this weekend. Pit stall openings also did not play a huge part in times as only two of the top ten had an opening into their stall so these times were mostly down to how well the drivers entered and exited pit lane while staying under the speed limit.

Sonoma provided a unique experience for pit crews and now all of them will get a bit of a reset as the Cup series takes a weekend off next week which means that we're likely to see some new entrants pop up on these charts when racing returns at Nashville on June 25th as crews come back to the track refreshed and ready to compete.

Methodology: Pit stops are pulled from NASCAR data and filtered to only show pit stops that included four tire changes that lasted between 8 seconds and 25 seconds in order to exclude pit stops that involve extenuating circumstances.

-Photo by Tim Parks/HHP for Chevy Racing