| Inside the Pit Box |
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This article was featured on the National Association of Pit Crew Member's website Hello, Before I get started, let me introduce myself. My name is Rob Faiella. I am a new member of the NAPCM, a Nascar Featherlite Modified Tour Crew Member, I write for SpeedwayMedia.com and TeamRacin.com and in my spare time, I go to any Nascar race I can or watch them on TV. First off, I want to thank Mark and Cambria for this site and this organization. This is truly a needed entity and I am thankful for all you do for us. With the recent accident and injuries on pit road at Homestead, a lot of focus has been brought to Pit Crew safety. I currently have an article on SpeedwayMedia about just that. I also just wrote an article for TeamRacin about getting to a race if you have never been and about all the Nascar critics who don’t see it as exciting and don’t see it as a sport. My advice to them was to Go to a race. Once you go, if you still have the same things to say, then I will listen. No one has come back disappointed yet. To fully understand my perspective on racing, Nascar, and safety, I must give you a bit more background on myself and I thank the NAPCM for giving me the opportunity to do so here. My dad was winning track championships at the local tracks in New England back when I was 6 years old. He would let me help work on the cars at the house, but of course I wasn’t allowed in the pits. The only real race car building I actually did was numerous failed attempts at model cars with my cousin Brian. We would get more glue on ourselves than on the models. It wasn’t pretty, but we did fabricate our own roll cages with the plastic trees that the parts came on. It’s amazing what you can do with a lighter and an imagination. (Kids, don’t try this at home!) I would go to all the races and cheer for my dad and in between races I would scramble to the fence hoping to catch a glimpse of him and the crew hard at work. I was intrigued and so curious to know what when on back there. My dad retired from racing when I was 13 and I never got the chance to get in the pits. The first weekend after I turned 16, I was at the track an hour before it opened. I waited by the ticket booth, got my pit pass and strolled on in. I have to tell you that it wasn’t quite what I expected. This place really was The Pits. This was not a clean place, guys were cussing and griping and no one seemed happy. Everyone was running at full throttle trying to do anything and everything to get another tenth of a second out of those cars. I thought, well, this place isn’t all that grand, but, when I start driving, it will be a different ball game! Fast forward 4 years. I finally got the money, a sponsor, an old car from a friend and went racing! I entered the 4 cylinder enduro racing series at the Waterford Speedbowl in New London, Ct. I had a 1976 Chevy Vega pushing a few more horsepower than my lawnmower and I was ready to go! My uncle showed up with his trailer, we loaded the car and off we went. When we pulled into the pits at the track, suddenly the atmosphere was awesome. This was what I had hoped for and what I had waited for all these years. I quickly learned that there was more to racing than stripping the interior of a car, removing the glass and putting in a roll cage. When I went into the corners, the car had so much roll, I felt like I should be in the Chitwood thrill show because I had to be on 2 wheels. I also realized that I needed a crew. Doing all these adjustments and modifications by yourself is about impossible. I got some friends of mine involved to help me that week and quickly named by buddy Stretch as crew chief. None of us knew what we were doing, but Stretch was the only one who worked on the car until midnight with me. Possibly because he lived across the street. Throughout the season, we found wonderful things, such as gray areas in the rules. We got that car somewhat level in the corners, learned about tire pressures, and started finishing 2 or 3 laps down, versus 10 or more. I could almost smell victory! Or was that just my motor burning up? Then, as luck would have it, I wrecked it. Turn 1, lap 2. Side note: The front tire and hub assembly does not work well when moved back to the firewall at a high rate of speed. On another stroke of luck, a friend of mine had just rolled his street car the week before, he was uninjured, but the car was damaged. I bought his 1985 Dodge Charger from him for $200 and the crew and I turned it into a race car in 4 days. We were ready for Nascar at this point. It took a bit to get adjusted to a front wheel drive car, but we quickly got up to speed. Last race of the year I finished 2nd in my qualifier. I almost won it. I started 6th in the race and the crew and I planned our strategy. This was a 100 lap race and we knew that we had to be running at the end to have a chance. So for the first 50 laps, I hung out, cruised around and watched cars wreck around me and stayed in the top 10. And you wonder where these guys got the idea at Talladega! Anyhow, Lap 60 I start making my move. By Lap 70 I am in 5th and gaining on the leaders. Everyone has used up their tires and my strategy seems to be working. Lap 75, the leaders are side by side and 3rd and 4th are single file behind them. I catch them in 2 laps from half a straightaway back. As I am passing the guy for 4th and realizing that I am running at least a half a second a lap quicker than these guys, I start to smell victory! But, this time, it really is my motor burning up. The idiot light for the temperature comes on, I didn’t have gauges, and as I pass the guy for 3rd coming off of turn 2, the engines blows and I am done. I was so frustrated and so angry. I pulled into the infield to wait out the final laps and thought about how devastated my crew must have been. We didn’t have radios so I couldn’t talk with them and the pits were outside of the track walls. The race ended and the tow truck pushed me back to the pits. I got out of the car to find my guys high-fiving me for an awesome race. No one was sad, no one was angry. They congratulated me for a strong run and reminded me of how far we came in such a little time and told me we would get them next year. This bonding with the guys was a moment I will never forget. We truly were a team! Over the winter we bought a couple of Ford Mustangs and pieced together all the good parts and built what we felt was the car to beat. The first race of the season came up and we had jackets and hats with the team logo. We were all about winning now and if we couldn’t win, we were at least going to be the best looking losers. We had some great top 5 qualifying runs and a lot of top 10’s in what now was the 4 cylinder Mini-Stock division and found ourselves in 4th in the points at halfway through the season. The next week, we finished 5th. Our first top 5. And to factor in that we came back from a lap down after cutting a tire made it even sweeter. Unfortunately, that following Friday night, while driving home from a club, I was struck by a drunk driver while stopped at a red light. He hit me in the driver’s side rear tire at a 45 degree angle at about 70 MPH and I was at a dead stop. My car flipped over the top of his truck and came to rest 200 feet away on it’s wheels. I don’t remember any of this, as I was knocked unconscious on impact due to my head punching through the side window. Had I not been wearing my seat belt, who knows. I suffered some serious back and neck injuries which laid me up for a few months. My racing career was over as my doctor told me that my neck could not withstand another violent impact. I sold the cars and parts to a friend of mine and he put about $500 into the motor and won the following week. I got asked to work as a track official and I accepted, although I desperately wanted to be in that car. I finished the season out as an official and still finished 17th in the final point standings after missing 1/3 of the season. I decided not to return as an official the following year. I made the decision to return to driving and consulted my long time friend Ken Barry. Ken’s dad owns Spearpoint Auto/ Spafco Chassis in Ct and they build and race Featherlite modifieds for a living. I asked Kenny about safety issues and wanted him to build my car and install the seat and what not. Kenny told me that he was running one of his dad’s old modifieds, a car built and run by Richie Evans, and asked me to join his crew. I told him there was no way I could ever be satisfied on a race team unless I was driving. Boy was I wrong! We spent the winter fixing up Kenny’s car and preparing for our debut at Thompson International Speedway in Ct. I don’t think we made it through one weekend without a wreck or a blown motor, but I was hooked. Thompson had a pit road in the infield and we were allowed to service the cars during the race. This was just like the real thing. We had uniforms, air guns, light weight- one pump jacks and radios. This was cool. I felt like a celebrity looking up into the stands from pit road watching the fans cheer and knowing that I was a part of their excitement. I wanted to drive, but, I quickly learned that I didn’t need to. The next few years saw great things. We won rookie of the year at the legendary Stafford Motor Speedway. We finished in the top 10 in points. We won races and most importantly, we had fun. If we weren’t working on the car, we were out at a club, playing golf, or whatever. What was important was, we did everything as a team and built great friendships. In between our weekly runs at local tracks, we would work on Kenny’s dad’s crew on the Featherlite Modified Tour with drivers Mike Ewanitsko, Rick Fuller, and Jerry Marquis. We got the opportunity to run a few Tour races ourselves and in the first one we never made it to the flag stand. As we came down for the green, we were on the outside. Someone tried to pass before the line and the flag and they wound up across our nose and stuffed us in the wall about 20 feet short of the flag stand. Talk about disappointment. We persevered and came back to race again only to have our driver get t-boned at a dead stop the next time we returned to the same track. The car was so badly bent in half that there was not one piece of metal on the car that was straight. Honestly, every bar in that car was bent. Kenny walked away with a concussion, a broken elbow, a damaged knee and more and we threw the car on the scrap heap. We won the race that day with our team car and the victory celebration was just as sweet as if it was the car we were pitting. I watch the tape from TNN over and over still to this day and watch the joy in my face and my eyes when we win it, and in victory lane. I can guarantee you that I know how Casey Atwood’s crew felt this week with Bill Elliott winning. They were just as happy. I know they were. The things I learned working with Art Barry and Kenny and that whole team are priceless. I never realized how much went into a race car. Work had me travelling for a couple seasons and I would fly back every chance I had. I sometimes drove up to 600 miles each way by myself to get to the track for the race not knowing if I was going to get to work on the crew or not. Since my work schedule was so hectic, I wasn’t able to be one of the main guys because I couldn’t guarantee I would always be there. But when I was there, I was a part of it and the team accepted me like I had never left. Since then the team has gone on to win the 2001 Championship this year with Mike Stefanik! I couldn’t be prouder. Although work had me in Florida this year and I failed to make it to a race, I still feel like I was a part of it. When talking with the tire changer, Rob Jencks, last week, I mentioned my efforts to get to a Cup or Busch team next season and mentioned my writing. He asked if I had written about the Modified team and I told him , not yet. He said, Don’t forget where you came from and where your roots are!. Those words made me feel like he understood that I was still a part of it. If I don’t get a job with a Cup or Busch team next season, or even a Truck team, I will be making every effort to get to the Modified Tour races. Being away this season made me realize how much of a part of my life racing is. I have no idea what a crew member position pays in the big leagues and I could care less. If I made enough money to pay for an apartment and the team got me to and from the track each week, that is all I need. I do this because I love it. I do this for the competition. I do this for the friendship and the camaraderie. I can’t begin to explain the bond of a team and the willingness to take one for the team and do whatever it takes to achieve the common goals. I know that with the higher levels of Nascar come higher levels of expectations, greater personal sacrifices, greater disappointments and increased pressure to perform. I have been preparing my whole life for this. This is what I do. When I am done writing this article tonight, I will be racing in an internet racing league with Nascar Racing Simulation software. After that, it’s more reading and research. Then I will continue my articles and stories for a book that I was asked to write for. (More on that as it progresses). And at some point, I will get some sleep. I live and breathe racing and that is all I can see myself doing. I have set the goal of reaching one of the top 3 levels of Nascar by 2003. I have committed myself to learning everything I can about the rules, the cars, and the tracks involved at these higher levels. I have also set a goal of becoming a Nascar crew chief in one of those 3 levels by the 2008 season. Sound aggressive? Sure is, but that is how I operate. My goal of being a Winston Cup crew chief by 2010 is not going to be easy to attain, but you can bet I will give it everything I have and then some. I hope that my desire, my spirit and enthusiasm to pursue this lifelong dream will help inspire others with the same goals to push as hard as they can and make every attempt at achieving their own goals. I hope current Cup, Busch and Truck crew members, even IRL, Cart, whatever. I hope you guys can remember back to the days when you were this hungry. I hope you can remember the fire in your gut. I hope you can draw from that and have it help you get through the events of Homestead. I hope you can remember why you got involved in this sport and what it meant and maybe get a renewed vision and spark. I know that most of you still have that passion and still live the dream everyday. I will thank you all in person when I make it to your level. You guys inspire me to keep pushing and I won’t give up. Thank you for all you give. Thank you again to Cambria and Mark for this site and I hope you enjoyed my story. I would love to hear stories from those trying to get into Nascar, from those already in, and from guys in other series as well. I can be reached at rob15race@yahoo.com and I thank everyone for taking the time to hear my story! Happy Holidays and God Bless!! Rob Faiella (Future Nascar Winston Cup Crew Chief) |