Jeff Kerr
Jeff Kerr is a Jackman for the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevy driven by Kasey Kahne.
Jun 20, 2012
It was a bittersweet day for the Farmers Insurance team this weekend in Michigan. Bitter because we were caught up in another accident, but all too sweet because our teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr., drove away from the competition by a straightaway to win his first race in over four years.
One of the greatest things about the whole race was watching the fans stand up and cheer when Dale Jr. crossed the finish line. I haven’t heard fans get that loud in a long time, especially at a race won in such dominant fashion. Normally when a driver laps half the field it makes for a boring race, but it’s different when the sport’s most popular driver simply outclasses the competition.
The “Dew Crew” did an outstanding job keeping up with the changes on the track and maintaining a solid focus when they really needed it. On pit road there is no greater pressure than knowing you hold Dale Jr.’s fate in your hands. His fans are some of the most sincere in this sport, and they will never let you forget it if you are the one that lets their driver down. All that pressure must be subdued to maintain the precision and focus needed to complete a competitive pit stop in a race against the best pit crews in the world. I’m sure those guys will cherish their accomplishment for a long time.
One of the lesser-known gestures after a victory takes place on pit road: teammates of the winning crew will pack up the winner’s pit box. We do this is
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By Jeff Kerr
Jun 13, 2012
Kasey Kahne won the annual Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 27, 2012.
Pit stops during the Charlotte race went very well. During most pit stops the car needed only minor adjustments, but we did take time during one stop to add a “packer” to change the right front ride height. This helped Kahne through the corners when the track changed from day to night. Most crew chiefs won’t choose to add a packer during the race because it can add up to three seconds to a pit stop. Francis decided the risk was worth the reward, and he was right. It really helped the handling of our car in the corners by limiting the contact of the splitter with the race track. We entered pit lane for our last stop of the night with Denny Hamlin close in tow and managed to turn out our fastest pit stop of the night and send Kahne back on the track still in the lead. Kahne drove away from the competition and secured his first win for Hendrick Motorsports!
Next, we steamrolled into Dover, Del., in our Hendrickcars.com Chevy fresh off our Charlotte win and feeling great about our chances of another victory. We fell short of the win but brought home another top-10 finish while our teammate, Jimmie Johnson, put a Hendrick car in Victory Lane for the fourth week in a row. It wasn’t the win we were looking for but after the long day of numerous adjustments to the car, we were certainly satisfied with the effort and ready to head to Pocono Raceway.
In Pocono our team had an extended stay, arriving on Wednesday for a two day test session before Sunday’s race. The test helped the teams get acclimated to the newly paved surface at Pocono Raceway. The increased grip on the track and faster straightaway speeds made for a lot of brake heat and very hot wheels for us to handle. A few of my teammates were left nursing some blisters on their hands and fingers after the race.
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May 24, 2012
The Charlotte All-Star week is an exciting yet challenging opportunity for the pit crews in NASCAR.
Let’s back up approximately four weeks and start from there. After the Kansas race, the No. 5 Farmers Insurance crew began our preparation for the Pit Crew Challenge. This requires a very delicate balance between our daily tasks – like pit stop practice and workouts – and preparation for the crew competition, which includes individual skills practice, pushing 3,200-pound race cars and heavy weight-room workouts.
To balance the scales, we have to make sure we are in excellent shape without pushing too hard and having a sore body. Any time you try to perform fine motor skills with sore, fatigued muscles, your body fights back, which can mean diminished performance at the track.
With an already full schedule of racing and preparation, we at Hendrick Motorsports managed to bring home two of the trophies from Thursday night’s competition. The No. 48 Lowe’s crew won the team competition, and I was able to somehow pull off a win in the individual skills competition for jackmen.
When preparation and opportunity meet willing participants capable of laying it all on the line for one opportunity, great things are bound to ensue. I’ve been watching these 48 guys over the past several weeks and they have great team camaraderie that doesn’t come along very often, and they are working diligently to make the best of it.
I tip my hat
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By Jeff Kerr
Apr 26, 2012
The Kansas City weather forecast called for temperature in the mid-60s. I’m not sure the thermometer ever went that high on race day. If it did, the wind made it feel like…let’s just say “cold and irritating” in two ways.
First, was dealing with the cool temperatures in a physical way. That part wasn’t so bad from our perspective as athletes, but when it affects the car and the track, you get some unexpected setbacks. More than one team found their fuel mileage come up short—including us, just before our planned pit stop. The wind and the cool track temperatures made for more grip and faster speeds, and the higher RPMs in the motors meant lower gas mileage. While running second, Kasey had to coast to the pits for fuel and tires, sending him back to 18th on the track. Normally this would have been a huge setback, but with Kasey at the wheel of a great Farmers Insurance Chevrolet, he was able to drive back through the field and finish eighth.
However irritating as it may have seemed early in the race, we were able to capture our second top-10 finish in two weeks. Through my past experience in athletics, setbacks usually do one of two things. They either build stronger, more resilient people or they send people into hiding saying, “Should’ve, could’ve, and would’ve.” So far our team has been resilient with great leadership from our crew chief Kenny Francis. Too many people get extremely frustrated when adversity hits.
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By Jeff Kerr
Apr 20, 2012
They say things are bigger in Texas, and they were right with regard to our points accumulation. We finished seventh this week with good solid pit stops that contained a plethora of adjustments. Performing so many adjustments usually costs extra time on pit road, but we managed to hold our own without losing too many positions. On our first stop, I did my best “Three Stooges” impression by going tail over tea kettle when I slid on the painted line that marks our pit box and cost our team an extra second. A second doesn’t seem like a lot of time on the daily clock, but during a pit stop it’s an eternity when good and bad are separated by tenths and hundredths of a second.
The rest of our pit stops included wedge and track bar adjustments to change the balance of the car. We also inserted a spring rubber in the right rear spring to add more tension and help the car’s weight distribution. You might ask why we are doing so many adjustments to the car. The answer is the track changes as rubber builds up and the track temperature cools down.
Another factor that came in to play this week was the wind. Wind gusts were upward of 40 mph on Sunday, and I heard a few drivers say that it played havoc on their car during the race. We have a sign extending from our pit box that marks our pit stall for the driver so he can enter his pit stall more aggressively. This sign had to be removed because the high wind had the potential to break it. The pole that holds
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By Jeff Kerr
Mar 29, 2012
We brought a little red to an ordinarily blue state this week. I’m referring to our conservative approach to Sunday’s race in Fontana, Calif. It’s been a rough start to the season for the No. 5 team, but we brought home a top-15 finish to brighten a rain-shortened day.
From the pits, we made a lot of adjustments. Kasey (Kahne)’s Quaker State Chevy was “loose in,” causing the back of the car to swing out, so we lowered track bar and left side wedge during the first two stops. This made the car more drivable but not quite to Kasey’s liking. Next, we inserted a spring rubber in the right rear to add more tension to the spring and made tire pressure changes that helped Kasey turn the same lap times as the leader. With the car dialed in, it was time to start making our way back to the front from the 12th position. Mother Nature decided she had an adjustment of her own with the rain. With only 15 cars on the lead lap, crew chief Kenny Francis made the call over the radio for Kasey to pit if the lead cars stayed. Only two or three cars came to pit road so we decided to pit and take our chances that the rain was going to stop. This is a gamble you take when racing against Mother Nature.
A lot of folks will say we should have stayed out because the rain wasn’t going to stop. But even the best meteorologists are making an educated guess each day. I’ve ridden my motorcycle to work with a 0% chance of rain and found myself in a “frog strangler.”
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By Jeff Kerr
Mar 22, 2012
“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
Our guys are still excited about our jobs in listening to the chatter this week. Our rear tire carrier, “Opie,” made this comment: “I would rather wreck running in the front than finish 22nd complaining about how bad the car is and just turning laps.” Sometimes the hardest thing to do is look for the silver lining in a situation. When everyone around you is so focused on the problem, they can’t see the solution.
We’ve brought fast cars to the race track every week! The difference between finishing great and just finishing in this sport is so small that you have to have everything go right or the “Luck Bee” will sting again! We were stung this week in the first 25 laps when the spotter called Kasey clear, but just a few tenths of a second later, the 78 car had already closed the gap. Kasey had reacted to the spotter calling him clear and there was no time to counteract, thus sending the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet spinning.
“Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unsuccessful genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan; ‘press on’, has solved and will solve the
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Mar 18, 2012
Craps is a great game to play in Vegas until you roll the dreaded seven – just like our race in Sin City.
We were in the running for a great Top 10 or Top 5 finish until we hit the wall with the No. 17 car. Such is Vegas luck: you win some, you lose some, but mostly you just break even. And that was our day: we broke even in finishing 19th.
That was our finish, but our day wasn’t all that bad. We started the race with a lot of adjustments. Crew Chief Kenny Francis made very strategic calls that made the car better after every pit stop. It seemed as if every time the sun would peek around the clouds, our car would be loose. If clouds covered the track, our car came to life. In talking with some other teams, they seemed to have the same problems with their cars.
Pit stops were going great all day, with the exception of a lug nut that fell off the right rear during a late-race stop. As the new wheel was installed, one of the lug nuts that was glued on came loose. This caused our pit stop time to be two seconds slower than normal. Luckily, it didn’t affect Kasey’s No. 5 Chevrolet because so many teams around us decided to take two tires. When the race restarted, Kasey drove right past those cars on his four fresh tires and was running back in the Top 10. A late-race restart bunched up the field, and Kasey got caught up in someone else’s wreck with four laps to go.
Next week we are in the bull ring of Bristol, better known as “Thunder
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By Jeff Kerr
Mar 7, 2012
Although it was close to 90 degrees at Phoenix this weekend, it didn’t prove to be a very warming situation for the No. 5 Farmers Chevy. We had a car that was two-tenths faster than the rest of the field in dirty air, but the bad luck bandit struck us yet again.
One of the good things about wrecking early in the season is that you get a chance to see how new teammates deal with adversity under stressful situations. So far, our guys have handled it very well and we’ve fixed the car right the first time.
We hurt the front end pretty substantially and took the car back to the garage where we found a lower control arm that was broken along with some rear quarter panel damage. After the car was repaired, Kasey (Kahne) was still able to turn the same lap times he ran at the start of the race. However, we were numerous laps down after the repairs so we switched to “test” mode for the November race.
Pit road in the desert is another treacherous place. Phoenix and Las Vegas have a lot of dust (as you can imagine, they’re in the middle of a dust bowl) that makes concrete very slippery. You can sweep the concrete numerous times and it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Also, Phoenix was recently repaved and the pit road was given a “slick” finish instead of a brushed finish. One of the things we do to help ourselves is add Pepsi to the concrete after every pit stop. The concrete is around 100 degrees, so the syrup dries very quickly,
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By Jeff Kerr
Feb 22, 2012
NASCAR fans arrive at the Daytona International Speedway
We went to Daytona with the intention of performing one four-tire pit stop and a gas-only stop. Not the case!
After the No. 5 Chevy was collected in an early wreck, we came to pit road seven times for various damage repair scenarios. In the end, it added up to two burnt fingers, a hammer to the hand, and enough BearBond tape to repair the cars of every Farmers Insurance customer after this week’s ice storm.
Well, maybe not quite that much, but you get the picture.
Saturday night wasn’t a shining moment for a lot of teams, but we did manage to leave Daytona with a 13th-place finish and get a jump start on our crash repair practice. We’ll take it and move forward to the Gatorade Duels on Thursday and secure a good starting spot for Sunday’s Daytona 500.
Check out our team at www.HendrickMotorsports.com.
