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On review, it appeared that the jack was not fully under the jack peg before the jackman began jacking up the car. It was a simple mistake in the heat of a moment and it is a wonder it has not happened more often with all the teams.

What happened after the car fell of the jack is what should be of concern to the pit stop coach and Roush Racing. The team appeared to be in total mayhem after the car fell. Precious moments were wasted as the jackman tried to get the jack under the car and it is painfully obvious that with no wheels on one side of a car the normal jack is not going under the rocker panel. Teams have a "flat tire jack" which is a tool designed for lifting a car high enough to get the normal jack under it when a car comes in with a flat tire. Once the flat tire jack was brought into the picture, it appeared that with the flat tire jack could not be used as normal when both wheels were off one side of the car.

During all of this one or two crewmembers could be seen trying to lift the car. But there did not appear to be any orchestration of efforts. As Darrell Waltrip later noted, seven men should be able to lift one side of a car enough to get the jack under it IF they all were working together.

One of the crewmembers equipped with the flat tire jack decided to use it going in the front tire well and hooking under the firewall area. It quickly became obvious that he did not have enough mass to lift the car with the tool and had to wave down a crewmember of larger statue (I’m guessing the fuel man). Whatever they had selected under the front of the car gave way, and the poor guy fell to the ground twice before they finally got the flat tire jack positioned under something substantial enough to support the car and he was able to lift the car. To add insult to injury, once the crewmember got the car raised, it took a considerable amount of time for someone to grab the normal jack and get it under the jack post.

Nextel Cup teams employee pit crew coaches and do a great deal of training thru the week to hone their skills and to enable them to perform their lightning fast pit stops. What they should seriously consider is a sort of disaster preparedness training. Instead of just practicing normal pit stops, they need to think worst-case scenario and use some of their preparation time to work out solutions to problems like occurred Sunday.

If something like that were to happen again, they would know what solutions work and how to quickly change to those game plans. Take two wheels off one side of the pit stop practice car and work out solutions. 6 men attempt to lift the side of the car while the jackman prepares to get the jack back under the car. Determine how to use the flat tire jack when there are no wheels on one side of the car. Determine what are the best "second option" lifting points.