In motorsport, every second matters when it comes to on-track performance, and as the IndyCar field tightens, one team is looking to change its pit crew strategy.

Meyer Shank Racing is looking to get an edge on the competition — which means it’s considering hiring specialist, fly-in pit crews for its races in the near future.

IndyCar team considers fly-in pit crews

Pit stops are a critical element of every sport; being able to change tires and refuel quicker than the competition can net a team the fractional advantage that could give them the edge over the competition.

Formula 1 pit crew members are some of the finest and most disciplined in all of racing, able to complete a stop in a matter of just over one second, but even NASCAR has adopted its own unique pit stop strategy.

See, in the stock car series, pit crews are “fly-in” team members. That means that these are highly trained crew members who have exactly one purpose with the team: Pitting cars. These crew members are generally former college athletes who are physically fit with instant reactions — but they’re not servicing the car or making any repairs.

F1 pit crew members are highly trained, but they do generally also service the car when it’s in the pit lane.

In IndyCar, though, neither of those procedures exist.

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In IndyCar, the pit crew members are also the mechanics for each car. While this has traditionally cut down on costs and enabled teams to operate on a smaller budget, Meyer Shank Racing co-owner Mike Shank told RACER that he doesn’t feel that’s going to do the job anymore.

As the IndyCar calendar grows longer and the competition gets tighter, it’s natural that teams are going to look for every advantage possible to trim down time.

“It’s just a lot to put on these guys as the schedule gets tighter and busier,” Shank said.

“We ask them for perfection on the cars with car preparation, and then ask for perfection on pit lane performance, right? That’s just a lot to ask of anybody.”

“A thing that I think is coming is professional pit crews.

”It’s trying to creep in. Now I’m trying to figure out ways to pay for it.

“As an example, instead of paying a driver all the money you have left, maybe some of that budget could go towards a pro-spec pit crew that come in.

“I think that’s definitely on its way in, and we’re talking about D1, D2, D3 athletes that are super competitive and make a decent living doing other things but also come in on the weekends.

“But we’re not there yet though. We’re looking at it. There’s already teams doing a couple of positions that way, but not all of them. But I think it’s going more in that direction over the next year or two.”

However, Shank did acknowledge that there’s one other factor preventing him from adopting this strategy wholesale: Many of the mechanics that serve as pit crew members aren’t doing it out of obligation. They’re doing it because they love it.

“They would truly miss that side of it,” Shank said of the pit crew duties, “so you’ve got to weigh that against pure performance.

“That’s what this is, right? We’re asking them to do all that at a super high-level of execution all weekend with preparing and running the cars in all the sessions, and then at the end, when everybody is the most worn out, to go out there and do the same high level with pit stops.

“And no joke, there’s all kinds of amazing crews who do it and have done it for a lot longer than I’ve been here, including our own.

“But what if we could help ourselves by doing it a different way? It’s going to be a delicate rope to walk, in my mind, that’s for sure.”

If MSR is thinking about this, then you can be sure bigger-budget operations like Team Penske are considering a swap to fly-in pit crews as well.

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