Las Vegas Pit Crew Win Goes To Kurt Busch’s Team; Sadler’s Crew Moves Into First Place. Three races, three different winners and three different point leaders. That’s how the McDonald’s Drive-Thru Pit Championship fueled by POWERade has fared at the first three NASCAR NEXTEL Cup events of the 2004 season. The latest McDonald’s/POWERade winner to claim the $20,000 weekly prize is Kurt Busch’s pit crew, which had the best performance for participating teams in Sunday’s UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The victory by Busch’s crew follows wins by Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew in Rockingham and Tony Stewart’s crew in Daytona. The victory lifted Busch’s pit crew into third place in the overall McDonald’s/POWERade standings with 113 points. Elliott Sadler’s No. 38 crew leads the chase for the $200,000 season-ending bonus with 118 points. Stewart’s crew is second with 115 points. Busch’s No. 97 IRWIN Industrial Tools Ford spent the least amount of time on pit road in Las Vegas — 267.302 seconds. Bobby Labonte’s Chevrolet was a close second with a time of 267.465. Sadler’s Ford was clocked at 269.395 to finish third. “These guys have done a great job in all three races this year,” said Jimmy Fennig, crew chief for the No. 97 team. “On Sunday we were a little too aggressive on our set-up and we were making some pretty significant adjustments to the car every time we came into the pits. So to win the McDonald’s/POWERade championship says a lot about how great these IRWIN guys have been. We came in six times and picked up a couple of spots on three of those stops. We were consistent on our times and that’s our goal for the year.” Busch’s over-the-wall crew consists of: Scott Ward (front tire changer), Mark Full (front tire carrier), Kevin Gilman (rear tire changer), Jason Binger (rear tire carrier), Doug Newell (gasman), Scott Radel (jackman) and Jim Gaudette (catch can).See results and standings on my Pit Crew Page.(3-10-2004)
