By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor
Will Power’s No. 12 Team Penske pit crew parlayed three near-perfect stops in the championship round into a victory in Carb Day’s TAG Heuer Pit Stop Competition.
The competition, a longstanding tradition during the Month of May, pits 10 of the 33 pit crews for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 against each other in a head-to-head pit stop battle. Teams line up against each other on-on-one, with the quicker of the two teams advancing to the next round.
Power went up against James Hinchcliffe’s No. 5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports (SPM) crew in the finale, claiming the first and third rounds in a special best-of-three championship round. His Penske crew delivered each stop in under 12 seconds, though Power stuttered in the second of two stops to allow Hinchcliffe to claim a single round.
Power’s crew consists of tire changers Matt Jonsson, John Piccinotti, Shaun Rinaman and Adam Fournier. jack-man Blaine Hardy and fueler Quinton Washington.
Power’s team toppled the crews Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon and SPM’s Mikhail Aleshin en-route to the title, while Hinchcliffe’s group toppled the crews of Penske’s Helio Castroneves and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal.