Bubba Wallace’s Spotter Freddie Kraft Opens up on Pressure on NASCAR Pit Crews to be Fast Instead of Efficient

Since the start of the 2022 NASCAR Cup season, one of the biggest issues is the pit stops. This is largely because teams have had difficulty adjusting to the switch from five lug nuts to one. As a result, there are more and more instances of loose wheels. It also does not help that NASCAR has been very strict in policing the rules.

In other words, crewmen and crew chiefs are judiciously ejected for every loose wheel. Recently, Bubba Wallace’s spotter, Freddie Kraft, spoke on the matter.

He said, “I don’t know what the fix is. And I’ve talked to a couple of tire changers. It simply sounds like the pressure to be fast is outweighing the need to get the tire tight. Some of these guys, some of the more inexperienced guys that are on pit road can’t tell if the tyre’s tight.”

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“So you think its tight, you leave pit road, and guess what! It’s not tight. There’s a lot of factors in that boils down to everybody, like Brett said, the movement on pit road is so much this year. Small mistakes that used to cost one or two spots, now cost you 10 or 15.”

What else did Freddie Kraft say about the NASCAR pit crews?

As per Kraft’s observation, teams are working on employing new pit stop techniques. One example is Joe Gibbs Racing, who actually managed to record the fastest ever pit stop. Of course, this is a race and teams always want to get their driver out ahead of their rivals. So there is a chance of dropping the jacks too early and it ends up costing them dearly.

Without a doubt, this will be an issue that will continue to rage on for a long time. Kraft tried to offer some solutions, but it is up to NASCAR to try and rectify any of the problems. The spotter even insisted that ejecting people was not the answer, as it only hurt the teams even further.

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