Backstory: The mechanic as sports hero

And the rivalries, at least on the tarmac, are only intensified by the perquisites and potential bragging rights. For starters, winning pit crews are feted in first class on the plane ride home from each race.

Their tools are pragmatic works of art, pneumatic torque wrenches that are pulled apart and put together with the precision of a pilot going down a preflight checklist, and aluminum jack lifts that can hoist a car with a single downward thrust of a bar. "They say races can be won on pit row, and that's true," says D.J. Copp, who changes tires for NASCAR driver Carl Edwards. "But you're more likely to lose a race on pit row."

Mr. Copp is an 11-year "fly-in" man. He supplements his regular job by heading to the track every Sunday. For him, the Pit Crew Challenge is fun and a chance to make some extra cash. He'll take the accolades, too. "Having a bunch of people you don't know chanting your name in a sports arena, that's kind of cool," he says.

For the uninitiated, pit crew competition can be tough to follow. Two teams compete against each other at a time. Each crew - with an average of seven members - has four cars to work on. When a bell goes off, crew members at each station have to complete their tasks: empty two cans of gas in one car, change the front tires on another, change the back tires on the third, and jack up both sides of the fourth. Once completed, the crew members push a car 120 feet down a track, simulating what happens at an NASCAR race. The whole ritual takes about 25 seconds.

As lug nuts fly, Martin Truex Jr.'s relatively rookie crew surprisingly beats last year's champs, the crew of Kasey Kahne, by a full second - an eon in race-car time. "I don't know what happened; I think we were just fatigued," says Nick O'Dell, Mr. Kahne's tire changer.

Skeptics might say watching pit crews compete is akin to watching a face-off between Wimbledon ball boys or Stanley Cup Zamboni drivers. Others dismiss it as family picnic showmanship, and, to an extent, they're right: It's hard to find someone at the event who's not involved somehow with the drivers, from moms and dads to girlfriends and cousins.

But devotees see something more in these workaday "athletes" - a socket-set dexterity they can relate to - and they empathize with the emotion on the field. "Without their helmets on, the fans can see the anguish on their face when they miss a lug nut," says Tony Liljestrand, a TV production-crew member for Speed Network.

Like any sport, this one has its young acolytes. Three teenagers - Dayne Pickett, Patrick Baker, and Bryan Hoffman - hang around after the torque wrenches quiet down to collect souvenir lug nuts smeared with Loc-Tite. Bryan says he wants to be a jack man when he grows up, while Patrick and Dayne like the tire-changers. Exiting the stadium, Kathy Palmer, another enthusiast, confirms that being a NASCAR fan goes beyond the oval track on race day. "The truth is, if it's got tires, we'll watch it," she says.

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