CONCORD, N.C. - Even the deafening roar of dozens of 670-horsepower engines can’t chase away butterflies.
It's been that way for front tire changer Jafar Hall since he got into the pit crew business five years ago.
"There's nerves every Sunday ... every Sunday," Hall admitted during a conversation with HendrickMotorsports.com on Thursday. "I don't know if it will be any different, but there's nerves every time before I jump over the wall."
With sub-nine-second pit stops becoming the norm in the Next Gen era of the NASCAR Cup Series, who could blame him. But life and sport, even on the razor’s edge, isn't about the hurdle but how it’s cleared.
Hall has his own philosophy when it comes to dealing with the immense pressure week in and week out, and it may be simpler than one would think.
"I say my prayer before I jump over the wall every stop, and then I just go," Hall said. "I don't think too much. I try not to think. I just do the best that I can. That's all that I've got anyway. I just give it my all."
RELATED: Alex Bowman and the No. 48 team look to Phoenix after COTA comeback
That's all that anyone is expecting of Hall and jackman Eric Ludwig this Sunday at Phoenix Raceway as the two move over to the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet helmed by crew chief Cliff Daniels and driven by Kyle Larson.
The two are members of the Hendrick Motorsports pit crew program. But to stay sharp while rosters of the Nos. 5, 9, 24 and 48 “house cars” are full, the athletes compete for Spire Motorsports as part of an agreement between the two companies. When a need arises on the crew of a Hendrick Motorsports car, whether it be on race day or for an extended period of time, a backup plan is already in place. Prior to this week, Ludwig and Hall had served as part of the No. 7 team.
The weekly plan is finalized each Monday between the Hendrick Motorsports pit crew coach, Jacob Claborn in this case, and the crew chief of the team involved.
“It’s not like we were starting from scratch. We knew those guys were our next-in guys,” Daniels said. “There’s steps in place – reaching out to Spire, reaching out to the individuals and by the time we did a film breakdown meeting on Tuesday with the entire 5 team, Jafar and Eric were part of that meeting and helped us see and assess what happened.”
What happened occurred last Sunday at Circuit of The Americas.
By lap 42, in the midst of stage three, both Hall and Ludwig were 19 pit stalls away from Daniels and the 5 crew, worried about the No. 7 Chevrolet. That’s when Larson’s voice cracked through the static of the No. 5 radio.
The team had just pitted but almost as soon as Larson could utter the words, “right front,” FOX TV cameras captured images of the car’s tire rolling independently down the track as Larson showered sparks from the passenger side.
Mistakes happen. But in this scenario, the cause was even more innocent as further study on the pit stop that preceded the incident would reveal.
"There was a wheel weight that fell off and lodged between the back of the wheel and the brake hat," Claborn explained. "He was feeling it get tight but it was actually getting tight against the wheel weight. Probably a one-in-a-million type deal."
“When you watch the pit stop real time, it is impossible to see it, it happened so fast,” Daniels added. “You don’t see it at all when you’re watching the front changer helmet cam. To his airgun he thought and felt like it was tight, and it makes sense that the gun was kind of laboring and clutching at the end of its pattern. But then when you break it down and watch it in slow motion, you can see where the wheel weight came loose and fell into the perfectly worst position it could fall.”
Unfortunately, the black-and-white parameters of the NASCAR rulebook don’t allow wiggle room for intent and circumstance. Punishment for a wheel becoming dislodged is the loss of two pit crew members for a time of two weeks. The end. For the No. 5 team this week and next, the two forced to sit will be jackman, Brandon Johnson and tire changer, Blaine Anderson.
RELATED: Chase Elliott, No. 9 team flashing NASCAR championship mettle in 2025
It’s a decree well known by those in the sport, especially crew members. And in addition to having to repair the car and prep it for the rest of the race, the ramifications of the moment immediately began to weigh on the No. 5 team.
Sensing the sinking spirits of his squad, Daniels sprung to action.
"I could tell (they) were obviously distraught - they knew what was going to become of the penalty," Daniels said. "So, I grabbed the entire team below the pit box and the message was, 'We cannot look ahead past the race. We really don't have time to go back and do a CSI investigation.' We really had to be focused in the moment, knowing if we had the good fortune to get yellow flags, there could be critical pit stops still ahead of us.”
As it turned out, there were. To the 5 team’s credit, they executed two more clean stops and Larson was in position to rebound for a decent points day and about to break into the top 20, before being caught up in a late spin.
The result may not have been what was desired, but it was yet another showing of fortitude by a team that’s faced its fair share of difficulty in recent years. That even while winning the 2021 championship and 23 races since the start of that season, the most in the sport over that span.
"I think at this point now, we don't have to talk about or think about what it means to overcome adversity," Daniels said. "I think we've had enough experience overcoming adversity that it's just kind of a call out of our playbook. Fortunately ... or unfortunately … it is very natural for us. There's not a whole lot outspoken communication on, 'OK, we've got to go and rebound now.' It's just, 'OK, we've been here before and step one is fix the problem that's in hand right now and step two is to move on to the next things we need to accomplish with our race.’
"At the end of the day, I was proud of our guys for the ability to rebound like that. I did want them to know when the entire team was together, and we had our meeting that nobody on the team wanted to go racing without them down the road, but we didn't have time to look down the road. We had to stay focused on the mission."
Nothing about that singular focus figures to change this week, even though the pit crew lineup will. Regardless, no lapses can be afforded in the coming two races, maybe even more so than the first three when it comes to pit stops.
Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway are both drafting tracks. COTA is a road course. All three venues bring a variance of possible fuel-saving scenarios, pit strategies and ample opportunities to rebound from mishaps.
But at 1-mile Phoenix Raceway and 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway, speed and track position, more often than not, rule the day. And never more than in the current, Next-Gen era, has pit-stop time factored so heavily into final outcomes.
"That's exactly it. We're going to tracks in Phoenix and Las Vegas that are very pittable tracks and the expectation is to run good times,” Claborn said. “We can't afford to miss a beat these next two weeks.”
And there’s every expectation that no dip in execution will occur.
"Certainly, it's always a big ask to any athlete or anyone at this level, whether it be a pit crew member or a mechanic or an engineer, to go sit in with another team and still execute and perform their normal duties and do it at a high level," Daniels said. "I have a lot of confidence in Jafar and Eric and a lot of that is really on the back of knowing how well prepared our coaching staff has those guys and seeing their success on pit road.”
RELATED: Hendrick Motorsports company, driver averages at Phoenix Raceway
For Ludwig, this will be nothing new. He’s served on the No. 5 team multiple times before and is a veteran in such situations. But for Hall, this will be his first tour of duty with one of Hendrick Motorsports’ four entries, known as, “house cars”.
“Everybody that comes through that door wants to get on a house car,” Hall said. “It’s unfortunate how it happened but at the same time, it’s still exciting because you get the opportunity to go win a race. Everyone is good here. Winning a race at the Cup level would be nice.”
“I’m excited for Jafar,” Claborn added. “It’s not necessarily the way you want to go on a car, you never want to see anyone get hurt or suspended, but it is an opportunity he has.
“Eric has been around Hendrick Motorsports for quite some time now, so he’s very familiar with what it means to be on one of those four cars. Jafar is very aware of what it means as well and he’s been with our department long enough to know the impact and he’ll do a great job.”
To help ensure that comes to fruition, Claborn said he and the staff will now focus on ironing out the details, freeing up Hall to worry only about the stops and the butterflies that are inevitably coming for him in the desert on Sunday.
“Where it falls on myself and our coaching staff and Cliff and the team as well is to make them feel as comfortable as we can so they can go perform at a high level,” Claborn said. “That's the logistical stuff of making sure they have the right track shirt, making sure their helmet is situated with their camera, making sure the equipment that Eric needs for the jacks are getting switched over from the 7 to the 5, firesuits, taking care of all those logistics so that they can just perform. That's our job.”
Both Daniels and Claborn stood and observed on a cloudy, chilly Tuesday afternoon as the team, with its new, temporary members in place, ripped blazing simulated pit stops.
Rep after rep, the stopwatch, for the most part, told a positive story with stops coming in well under nine seconds.
Not bad, for day one.
"We had a great practice the other day, so, I know they can come in and do the job," Daniels said. "I'm sure there's going to be a little bit of nerves. There may be just a few things here and there to clean up along the way but I'm certainly confident that they can come in and do the job and in the time we've spent with them, they've already been showcasing that."
Claborn moved around throughout the session, zeroing in on the minute details from multiple angles; details that may slip past the untrained eye. He knows all too well that each movement, synchronized and choreographed to the nth degree, could result in tenths of seconds and multiple positions on the racetrack either gained or lost.
RELATED: Crew chief Adam Wall ready for busy NASCAR Xfinity Series slate
As for what he saw on the right side of the car, it probably didn't look all that different from film of stops on the No. 7 car this year. And for good reason: Ludwig and Hall have worked in unison on that side all season long.
Where that changes a bit is when the stop swings to the left side. That's when No. 5 rear changer Calvin Teague and tire changer RJ Barnette are integrated into the equation.
"When we go to the left side, RJ will now be with Jafar on the left front and Eric will be working with Calvin on the left rear," Claborn explained. “So, it's feeling each other out there. Feeling the space they have. We spent time (on Tuesday) practicing quite a bit with our road crew down there and we will continue to develop that chemistry throughout the weekend and into next week."
And more so than just physical reps, the session allowed for workout partners and friends to reacclimate to each other. As the leader of a team, those things were every bit as important to Daniels as the numbers the clock displayed, at least on Tuesday.
"That was a great team exercise. Everyone was involved and communicating and breaking down the film in real time and then, our guys that were suspended, they're down there watching and observing too," Daniels said. "Overall, it was nice to have the chemistry with the two guys coming in and we're fortunate to have that system at Hendrick Motorsports to get us to that point."
Through wins and losses, titles and crashes, Daniels and the No. 5 team only know how to go in one direction: forward. And usually, it’s in a speedy manner.
Daniels has been around plenty long enough to know that speed is a team effort and often times, that team stretches far beyond what appears on TV on Sundays. And sometimes, those team members can even be wearing a different team’s uniform.
"One thing I would say that is important to Hendrick Motorsports is knowing we have kind of a pipeline of talent and human capital we can use along the way and we have different mechanisms of doing that for people in engineering and for the guys that become road mechanics and work on our race cars and work on them in the shop - it's no different for the pit department," Daniels said. "It's really nice that we're built to have that depth. It does involve the crew guys being part of and performing on other teams, so to speak. But ultimately, they bleed Hendrick Motorsports. They're Hendrick guys. So, we're very fortunate to be able to pull them from our resources and have their talent and expertise, no different than we would do with some guys in different departments here that help us out in other ways as well."
And Hall, like so many others, has taken his own unique path and pilgrimage to get to Hendrick Motorsports. Just around a half-decade ago, he was a truck driver without much knowledge of racing at all.
RELATED: Kyle Larson's busy, international offseason
But when a friend mentioned a tryout at Hendrick Motorsports and listed athleticism as the prerequisite, Hall, who played high school football and basketball in his hometown of Chinquapin, North Carolina, took a chance.
“I didn’t have anything to lose at the time,” the 30-year-old said. “I was still young so I was like, ‘I’ll do it.’ I ended it up making it and I’ve been here ever since.”
His path has included a stint in the Xfinity Series with JR Motorsports and the last two seasons in the Cup Series with Spire.
And on the next two Sundays, that path will lead to the No. 5 pit box and an audition that is equally important for the auditioner as it is the auditionee.
As for where it goes after that, Hall isn’t about to preoccupy himself with theoretical scenarios. Not this week, for sure.
He heads to the desert and the weekend knowing only two things: One, he’s done all he can do to prepare for this moment and two, the butterflies are coming, no matter what.
Now, what to do when they arrive.
“I try not to think too far ahead, as (Hendrick Motorsports pit coach Todd Hagler) said, I just try to be where my feet are,” Hall said. “I just hope to do what I’ve been doing previously, and I think I’ll be fine. I think they’d like to see me do what I’ve been doing with a premier car. I guess they want to see if I’m going to still do that or fold under pressure. All I can do is pray about it, practice and then hope for the best.”