PHOTOS — ‘Road Side Assistance’: NASCAR Pit Crew Fixes Car Damaged in Accident on Chicago Street

Kaulig Racing
KauligRacing/Twitter, Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

NASCAR crew members knew exactly what to do Friday when a driver was involved in a minor accident on a Chicago street.

The crew got the car running again after it was damaged in a fender bender near where racing teams were prepping for an inaugural race on the Chicago Street Course, according to CBS Sports.

The group included members of Kaulig Racing and Legacy Motor Club and was near S. Dusable Lake Shore Drive when the two cars hit each other.

There were no injuries, but one of the vehicles’ front bumper and side were damaged during the incident and needed to be fixed.

When the expert mechanics saw what happened, they ran over to assist. Photos taken at the scene captured the moments they pitched in to help:

“That’s some pretty sweet insurance coverage they’ve got,” one social media user jokingly commented, to which another person replied, “That would be a pleasant surprise if you called road side assistance and whole pit crew showed up.”

NASCAR pit crews have been described as the “hidden athletes of car racing,” according to Endurance Warranty.

“When you look at the training and the tremendous amount of pressure that falls on a pit crew team, you come to appreciate the hard work and technical procedures that they have to carry out at every pit stop,” the site reads.

Video footage shows how fast and accurate a NASCAR pit crew must be to get a race car going again during a pit stop lasting 16.6 seconds that involved 72 steps:

Per the CBS report, Damon Lopez of Kaulig said the group removed the car’s bumper by unhooking the wiring harness, then reattached it before the motorist left.

“Normally confined to the controlled environment of a racetrack’s garage area, the makeshift repair work in response to a traffic accident illustrated the new and decidedly urban environment that NASCAR’s crews now inhabit in Chicago’s Grant Park area,” the article read.

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