Miss Sprint Cup gets pit-crew ready

CONCORD, N.C. – Miss Sprint Cup’s Kim Coon has seen her share of NASCAR pit stops.

As a three-year veteran of the Miss Sprint Cup program, Coon has traveled to Cup tracks all over the United States. A familiar face in Victory Lane, she knows what a winning pit stop looks like – but she still had one question.

“Well, we always see the [pit crew members] at the track and obviously see them in action over the wall,” Coon said. “You know, these guys are athletes. So I kind of wanted to see what they did behind the scenes to gear up and get ready for each race weekend.”

A fitness guru herself, Coon recently decided to try her hand at the typical workout of Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 team. Upon her arrival at Hendrick Motorsports, she was given a workout partner – No. 48 rear tire carrier Ryan Patton.

“I knew we were going to have to step our game up,” Patton said of his first thought when he heard of Coon’s visit. “Any time we have a visitor come and watch a workout or participate in a workout, we just try to turn it up a little bit, so we were all pretty excited.”

And Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Mark Morrison was not about to let her off easy. He, along with assistant coaches Darius Dewberry and Matt Skeen, led Coon and the rest of the No. 48 team through a series of drills on the outdoor performance training field. They closed out the workout with strength training and stretching in the weight room. For Coon, the quickness of the intervals was the most challenging part of the session.

“[It was] a harder workout than I thought it would be,” Coon said. “I was sweating my butt off. Ryan (Patton) did such a good job of being a motivating teammate and I’d definitely come back.”

For Patton, Coon served as a motivating teammate as well.

“I thought she did really well,” Patton said. “It was good to have her as a partner because she was kind of pushing me along, too. I’d look over and see her working really hard and it was a little extra motivation not to get overworked by Miss Sprint Cup.”

Click here for photos of Miss Sprint Cup’s workout with the No. 48 team.