Can A Football Player Survive NASCAR? | 'Kelce Versus' Ep. 1

What's up, everybody? Jason Kelce here. We are down in Charlotte at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, and we are partaking in the sport of NASCAR. Jason, you're looking good, man. Jesus Christ. We're gonna see what it's like to be in the cars as we're going around the track. Then we're gonna head over to Hendrick Motorsports. We're gonna see what it's like to be in the pit. All the precision and timing and everything necessary to get these things in and out of the pit as fast as possible. The amount of people necessary to make these races happen, the training that goes into it. I'm gonna immerse myself in the sport of NASCAR to see if I have what it takes. Day is up front! Do you trust me to do this right now? Let's freaking go! It's time to go racing. All right, here we go. Here's the deal. If I can get through a full day behind the wheel and hold my own in a pit crew practice, Yeah, we just changed the tire! Hendrick Motorsports is going to let me join a real pit crew during a real race at Talladega. Holy ----. No pressure. All right, this is the car we're driving today. First of all, how am I going to get in this thing? You just put your right leg up here first. I just put it in the middle of the seat. Then I have a hand here. And then, you know, this one over and then you just kind of monkey your way in there. Dude, this is not... Put the other one kind of in. I'm trying, William! Oh, you're doing great. The hard part's over now. Watch your head, watch your head. Oh yeah. Dude, this is tighter than the bobsled I was in. I think I'm more made for the pit crew. Are you good? Yeah. All right, here we go. I had no idea. In the race, we run up here. All the grip is by the wall. The wall will pack air against the right side of the car and it makes it have more downforce. We'll see how you do. All clear to stop on this side. Holy ----. That was terrifying. How many laps did we just do? We did probably eight. And how many laps are you doing in a race? 400. I am exhausted from eight laps. Oh, this is the vehicle I'll be driving? Yeah. I'm assuming this is one that nobody cares about if it gets damaged or... I don't know how it's going to drive, so your guess is as good as mine, but the gas probably goes on the right. All right, perfect. Last question, who's the crew chief? Hey, I heard you guys are looking for a crew chief. This is awesome, brother. I don't know anything about being a crew chief, so you're screwed. You're used to being in this seat right here. Wow, they really got you stuffed in there. Dude, I feel like a stuffed sausage. I am really tight. There's a reason why you were a football player and we're race car drivers. That's right, that's right. Do you still remember your first run around a NASCAR? Oh, I'm sure. The very first place I ever came to to drive a NASCAR car was this track. Really? Yeah, it is one of my favorites. It's one of the fastest. It's one of the most intimidating, one of the most challenging, but it's also one of my favorites. Hey, put your window down, you're going to have to run. You've never done this before? That's the way it should be. You're going to want, you almost have to anticipate that banky to get it down a little bit lower, but you're doing good. All right, now it's all you. William Byron just taught you how to get around this place. Let's see what you got. Slow it down, slow it down. Now come right down, yep, right down pit road. Perfect job. Bring it right up to your pit stall and then stop. Thanks, boys. You did it, Joey! I didn't even question that. How nervous were you? I did not trust you at all. Dude, there's a bump on one of those, right? Like it kept like, kind of like, yes. It's an infamous bump. Dude, it feels like it's about to slide and then it catches every time. That was awesome, man. I appreciate you guys so much. I'm glad, I'm really glad we got you in there. I'm glad you had a great time. I have no idea how we're going to get you out. Yeah, it's going to be difficult. You got it. Oh my gosh. Felt the same way as Bob said that you watch this on TV and you just have no idea what the drivers or people in the cars are actually going through, what it feels like. I'm exhausted just doing what I just did. So this race in May is 600 miles. Oh my gosh. We're not going to experience it today, pit crews. Those guys are fighting for every 10th of a second, it feels like. How much does that actually mean to you, the driver, in like your overall lap time? Yeah. What is the net gain from like a 9.5 stop versus like a 8.75 stop? Great, great question. Typically like an 8.5 to a 9.5 is a really good pit stop, depending on the track and the setup. If they're two tenths fast on a pit stop, that could gain you like two positions. And gaining two positions might take you 40 laps on the track. So it's like, you might gain or lose, you know, if you lose 10 positions on a pit road, it's a big swing. Pit crew is five people who go over the wall the moment the car stops. That's when you are legally allowed. In a matter of seconds, they change all four tires and refuel. The absolute speed and precision these guys possess is insane. Because they have to execute so precisely, you really feel the tightness of these teams. Jackman, one pump of the jack and the car's in the air. He sets the tempo for the whole stop, then drops it to launch the driver back out. Front tire changer, five lug nuts, one air gun, zero room for error. Old tire off, new tire on. Miss a nut, you own the race. Rear tire changer, same chaos, back of the car. He's locked in step with the front so the jack can drop the second bolt side of the gun. Tire carrier, hauls fresh rubber over the wall and slams it onto the hub. The unsung muscle of the stop. Fueler, this guy's about brute strength. Gallons of fuel dumped in seconds. Gotta have the muscle to pull off this job. Here's the deal, all five of these guys have to work in unison. Not only do they do their own job, but they're all responsible for assisting in some way. The jack man, not only does he jack the car, but he has to put one of the new tires on the right front. This was a job that used to be done by over 10 guys. NASCAR just recently, within the past 10 years, changed the rules where only five guys can go over the wall. All right, we're at Hendrick Motorsports pit facility practice pad here. We're gonna see if Jason can make the cut as a pit crew guy. We're gonna go ahead and teach Jason how to change tires, jack the car, hang tires, fuel the car, teach him how to hand in the fuel. We're gonna teach him every aspect of the stop, both over the wall and behind the wall. All righty, we're out here. We just watched the monolug team practice. Got a good feel for everything everybody's doing. Now the five lug practice has begun and now they're gonna start letting me go out and actually try some of the stuff. With how precise all of these pieces move around, the teamwork involved in it, I have a feeling this is gonna be a gigantic ---- show. All right, I'm gonna go out there, guys. This is Corey Day, by the way. What's up, Corey? This is the actual driver. The actual driver of the 17. I'm gonna get up here. All right, good to meet you, Corey. Good to meet you, brother. So, Jason, this is Adam Wall. This is the crew chief of the 17. How's it going, man? Good to meet you. Obviously, good job, Bristol. Last week, let's all do the work for us like we talked about. We will be tight on fuel to end stage one and then it's a very small window when we make a green flag stop. Keep doing your thing. I know we talked about last week, we're not gonna go from zero to hero in one week, so just keep building on the previous week and we'll get there. Yeah, it's always cool to come do this with you guys. I know that probably helps you guys with me in the car and stopping here how I do on the weekends. So, you guys are doing a good job and like AWOL said, we'll keep getting better. Thank you behind the wall. Appreciate you guys. Now, we're gonna see if Jason can figure out how to actually change these tires. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. Roderick, get him tied up. Bow, bow, bow, bow, bow. You're gonna have to get you a good square base. You wanna be dead center of this wheel well here. Arm distance away from the tire that gives you the best punch when you're punching and you really wanna punch these things. This might not be my job, guys. All right, here we go. That's all we're starting here. Right, right, right. Yeah. There you go. I like that, yeah. Oh, man, missed that one. All right. Yeah. Oh, oh, there it is. There it is. I've been trying to do it. Safety was not on. That's good. Okay. Now, you're gonna spool up, set your hands, then the same exact speed. So now I'm spooling up? Yes. Ah! Woo! That's how you do it. Ah! Yeah! Okay! Yeah! All right! I like that. Okay, now we're going back home. You're gonna reach that middle finger right through the wheel like this. Yep, yep. Take these two fingers and come to the top. Yes. And you're gonna pull it out and set the tire. Just set it there. Pull it out and you're gonna set it to the side. Yeah. After you let the tire go. Yep. You're gonna smack that red button. That turns it the other way. That's gonna make it go the other way. Yep. Switch. Lug nut. Hit it. Good. All right, ready, ready. Ready, go! Okay. Woo! Okay! All right. I think that was about 10 seconds for one wheel. For his first time, that was actually really good. But I'm not based on first time. No. It's probably the most important job. Yeah? Think about it. Car doesn't come up. Stay up. Can't get the tires off and change them. So think about that. Very important. Our first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna peg this car. All right. To the peg. Hand on the left handle. Hand on the right handle. Okay. Okay, that's the peg. At this point, it's locked in. You can do what you got. You can leave it there. So you release his left hand. Come back. Stroke it. Okay. That's how you get the car out. Bang. Yup. Good. And then you want to slide back fast. Really get after it. Exactly. Here. Okay. Yup. You're good. Oh man. That was not the move. That wasn't the move. That was not the move. Bang. Yup. Good. There you go. Yeah, that's up. And then you'll put the tire on. That's up. All right, Jason. So the next part of the Jackman, you got to get it up. It's got to stay up. Then you got to hang the right front tire. Yes. Go like this with your hands. Yeah. Like a V. V. Aim for the tape. Bang. Okay. Right foot right here. And we're going to go in. Race dance. Good. You got that. Good. Not the cleanest. All right. We are live. Ready? Go. Good. Yup. Come on. We got it. We got an exchange. I like it. Yeah, we exchanged the tire. All right. Jason just did the Jack. And as I expected, he's powerful. So he's able to get the car up. No problem. Took a little bit for him to understand the details. He ended up muscling it in there. Not too bad for the first time trying Jackman. Don't quite feel comfortable enough having the car roll for him today. But maybe sometime in the future, we can get the car moving and he can go peg and pump a moving car and try to do an exchange. All righty. We just got done with a full run of scope that everything that happens in the pit crew here at Hendrick Motorsports. It was awesome seeing all the detail and precision and technique and work that goes into making these things happen as fast as possible. The amount of people involved, the five guys out here kind of moving all around. The guys over on the other side of the wall, handing stuff over. It is detailed to every 10th of a second. And we are shaving seconds people off because we got a win here at Hendrick Motorsports. We're not taking last place or second to last or second to first. We're taking first. I don't know what I'm doing now. Kelsey versus is brought to you by Jackass. Best and last only in theaters June 26th. We've got the legend on the line. Johnny Knoxville is here. Johnny, great to have you. I heard this one's part new chaos and part looking back at the best stuff you guys have ever shot. What made you guys want to do it this way instead of just going all new? Well, we're terrible planners, Jason. And we decided we want to do a new movie. We want it to come out this year and like, well, we better get to work. And it's kind of a, it's a love letter to our fans and also to us because we still love doing it. You've been with the same group for over two decades now. Is there a stunt from this movie where you looked at each other like, yeah, this is perfect way to go out? I hate to keep bringing up the robot rectal exam, but just having that humanoid robot, sometimes we'll get ideas like, well, you know, that idea alone is worth doing a whole new movie for. And I kind of felt that way about 1W Larry, our perverted humanoid robot with really big fingers. I don't want to spoil anything, but tell the people why they need to see this in the theater and not wait. Jackass has always been a movie that's more fun to see with your friends because you can, it's like a horror movie in some, it's like trauma bonding, laughing, possibly puking on your friend, all kinds of emotions to share with your friend. They are the best, one of the best films to see in theaters. Thank you again to Jackass, best and last for sponsoring today's episode. Race day. Turns out going over the wall takes a little more than one day of practice. So I'm not jumping the wall today, but I'm still on the crew. I'll be behind the wall, running sign man and handling fuel. Different tracks drift differently because of the compounds in the asphalt. The banking of the turns. Are all the banks the same? No, this is the steepest one. This is the steepest? It is. 33 degrees. It's very like eye-openingly steep. This is the steepest part. That's four stories? Just about. I'm going to walk it first. Oh my God. I'm not even like onto the steep. This is insane. I don't know if my ankles are like, this is ******* wild. Holy ----. Oh my God. Dude, I'm about to eat ----. I'm not coming back up here. I can't see this. You better get this one on tape, Mike. **** this. This is like a cheat code for NFL workouts. I used to run hills and you would like try and find something like this. You know, Hendrick has a long history of super speedway success. Comes from two things. Fast cars and execution. We've seen how quickly Corey can adapt to these places. He showed at Daytona in Atlanta that he can drive through the field and get to the front. And then got the secret weapon here with us, Jason Kelsey. Happy to have him with us here today and show him everything that goes into this. You know, looks like go fast, turn left, but there's a whole lot that goes in into this behind the scenes. So cool to be able to expose you to that. Happy to be here, guys. I'm sure I'll be put in many positions today that'll be the first time. So I'm going to do my best to manage that. And like you said, just execute. So, appreciate it. Glad to have you here. Thanks, Corey. Try not to **** it up. That's what we do. Yeah, that's our goal too. Yeah, right. All we really do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in a race. Let's move on three. One, two, three. Boom! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Laps 300 miles. The car's coming through the tri-oval and they will see the green flag. It's time to go racing. Did you bring those knee pads that I gave you? No. What do you mean, no? I didn't bring them. You mean you don't have them? I didn't think I was going to get on my knees. If I get hurt and he get hurt and a lot of other people get hurt, maybe you might have to get in. Well, if you get hurt, I can borrow your knee pads. You're just going to pull them out of my damn knees. Oh my goodness. Want to scrape tires one of these times? I would love to. I don't even know what that means. What is scrape tires? When we stop, we'll get you to scrape a set. All right, perfect. You guys ready? Move out of the way right here. I'm going to throw this thing back here. Three, two, one. Well, for the first stage pit stop, I was the sign man and we had to go a little bit wider. So the coaching point was put a little bit like eight to 10 inches out so that he doesn't have to take a sharp of an angle when he's leaving. And it was also to stop short. So that's where that further little notch right there in that red line, that further notch is where you're normally putting the sign but because there were people stopping around us, we stop at short and you go wider so that he doesn't have to take as drastic of an angle. So he knows based on where that sign's at, where he needs to put the nose of the car at. And then once he hits the sign, let's get the **** out of the way. Don't **** up everybody else who's actually doing ----. Scrape it right off the top. You trust me to do this right now? I trust you to do this. You don't got to get too wide with it, but no. All right. And then I'll sometimes clean up the ends by going sideways. I'm ******* this whole thing up for you. You show me, keep, I'm good watching. So you're only doing the holes. Correct, yes. I didn't know that. Oh, you're good. So the plan on the next stop would be, as of right now, right sides and fuel. That'll help keep us up front strategy-wise. Got it. And that would set us up for a fuel only on the third stage. So the biggest thing that worries me when I watch this is knowing that we're going to either take rights or more tires on the next one. This car in front of us cut the corner so much, that would have killed one of our guys. So I already had a conversation with one of the guys on that crew next to us. Hey, if we're doing rights, man, he can't be there. Can't do that. So if I rule his left side, it's got to be on or outside that line. Well, I figured that's what that line was for. Yeah, exactly. Want me to sign or cash? We're going to do a fuel. All right. And we're going to do a two can exchange. Two cans? Yeah. My job is to take these gas cans, hand them to the guy that's fueling the car. We got two, we're going to do two of them. All right. So stop two there, we took four tires and two cans of fuel. We wanted to get as much fuel in it as we could right there to have the shortest amount of time stop for our third stop, our final stop of the race. So team's doing good right now. We did everything we needed to do. We executed a clean stop. Jason did what I expected him to do. He did a good job, handed it in a can. You know, big, strong guy, took care of business. So we're excited to get to stop three, go with a short stop, and let's try to put Corey out there for a chance to win. Right around the 88, going on me. On the side. One lane, one lane. Great position right here, but I just think that outside's going to have the momentum. It's going to be all about the help that you can have behind you. I really appreciate you coming out here. Like, almost like one of us. You know what I'm saying? I appreciate it. Thank you for having me out here, man. It was awesome. And you remembered my name, too. I don't know whether you got a little sheet and you're studying, but. Here we go. Sponsored by Credit One Bank. Mayer, Day, and Creed fighting for the win. Guys are going to stay bottom and flush it. Stay tight to them. Clear top. I'm on. Tight to the 41 now. Perfect position right here. He's going to have Creed behind him, giving him a push. Keep doing your thing. I know we talked about it last week. We're not going to go from zero to hero in one week. So just keep building on the previous week. Day is out front. Oh! Yes! I'm a lucky dog! **** yeah! I'm a lucky dog! Hey, look. We can't let you leave now. No, no, no. Now it's time to celebrate. You got to come next week, too. Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. We'll be right back. Not until Saturday, okay? We're the champions! Now that's ******* driving right there! Way to go. Woo! What's up, everybody? We're down here in Talladega off a fresh win. That's right. 1-0, baby. That's all it is. Shout out to Hendrick Motorsports for allowing me to have this opportunity to join the team, to see what it's like to be in the pit crew. Cory Day, first ever race at Talladega, getting the win. It has been an awesome experience. With that said, I would like to just take this moment to make an announcement. I'm officially retiring from NASCAR. That's right. I'm taking it out on top, baby. How many people can say that they've won a Super Bowl and a Talladega race? Y'all just won Talladega. What are you going to do next? Boulevard! We got to go to the boulevard now. Thank you again to Jackass Best and Less for sponsoring today's episode.