Pit Stops over the ages.

[Everso Biggyballies]

In the off season period as we wait for the new season to unravel I thought maybe this topic of pit stops over time might garner some interest and comments from those who have seen the evolution of stops over the years, with most of the change having come in recent years.

I posted this based on watching at the moment Season Reviews on TV from the 90's. I was smiling to myself at the pit stops of back then.... I remember back in the day thinking how blisteringly quick the pit crews were, and watching in awe as pit crews refuelled and changed 4 tyres in under 10 seconds. Nowadays we look back at the stops we saw in such amazement as being positively pedestrian as we have moved on, albeit without fuel stops to tyre changes with the car stopped amid a carefully choreographed 20 man dance of clinical precision for less than two seconds, with 3 seconds now seen as an excuse for an I wonder what went wrong / who fucked up type comment.

Of course the now pedestrian pit stops of the 1990's were as I mentioned spellbinding at the time, in the same way as people were impressed in earlier times by at the time blistering pit stops.

For instance this period review from the 1930s when stops were measured in minutes:

Robert Daley, a correspondent for The New York Times, described the precision and efficiency of a Merc pit stop at the 1937 race at Donington in his book, Cars at Speed:

On lap 21 the German pits made ready to receive their cars. The British fans had heard about this and they waited for it with hearts in their throats. ... It seemed impossible that a simple pit stop could thrill them, yet—they had heard stories that could not be credited.

Now down the slip screeched [Manfred] von Brauchitsch, his car snaking as he stood on his brakes. Around it swarmed the pit crew. Fuel was pressure-fed into his tank at the rate of five gallons a second, rear wheels were hammered off and replaced by new ones, von Brauchitsch was handed a bottle of water, clean goggles, and was away again. Elapsed time: 33 seconds.

I found quite a good article on the pit stop over the ages scenarios, with videos

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2202 ... onsistency

Hopefully others will add their comments and finds regarding this evolutionary process that has gone from cigarette smoking mechs belting wheel spinners with hammers to today's $100,000 rattle guns and orchestrated much rehearsed procedures.