I show up at Roush Fenway Racing in Concord, North Carolina, with a wrench and a dream. Okay, I don’t even have a wrench. They provide those. But the dream, yes. Think of the story: A writer arrives to do a piece about how pit crews work, and it turns out he’s an undiscovered tire-changing phenom. Next thing you know, I’m leaping over walls from Bristol to Loudon, helping my team get that little extra advantage. Zeeww, zeeww, zeeww! There’s probably a better way to write the sound that air wrenches make.
Roush Fenway’s wrenches, like everybody else’s, are a standard NASCAR spec. They’re powered by tanks of compressed nitrogen for consistency, which is important when your socket spins at 12,500 rpm. The jack, too, is a standardized item, part…
