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    NASCAR's Drive for Diversity is transforming pit crews with college and pro athletes

    LOS ANGELES — When Tyriq McCord joined NASCAR as a pit crew member a little more than three years ago, his knowledge of what made a car go fast stopped and started with the gas pedal. "I didn't even know how to change the tire on my car," he said. But he could bench-press 225 pounds and run 40 yards in 4.5 seconds and those were the kinds of skills Phil Horton was looking for. A former ...
    by Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times Feb 04, 2023 7 minutes
    On May 25, 2018, coach Phil Horton speaks with competitors during the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Combine at the NASCAR Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina.

    LOS ANGELES — When Tyriq McCord joined NASCAR as a pit crew member a little more than three years ago, his knowledge of what made a car go fast stopped and started with the gas pedal.

    "I didn't even know how to change the tire on my car," he said.

    But he could bench-press 225 pounds and run 40 yards in 4.5 seconds and those were the kinds of skills Phil Horton was looking for.

    A former athletic trainer in college football and with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, as the pit crew coach for stock-car racing's Drive for Diversity development program Horton has recruited more than 100 former college and professional athletes, from lacrosse players to linebackers, to work as tire changers, tire carriers, jackmen — and women — and gasmen for teams in all three of NASCAR's top three nationwide series. And while that has undoubtedly made NASCAR more diverse, it's also made pit crews better and faster, which can mean millions of dollars in a sport where the average margin of victory last season was 1.011 seconds.

    "The speed of the game in our world has picked up dramatically so we look for

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