Ahead of the EchoPark Automotive Grand PRix at the Circuit of the Americas, the honorary starter Leo Neugebauer and Grand Marshall Jack Quaid agreed that they both would like to experience a NASCAR pit stop. Olympic silver medalist Neugebauer might be slightly more prepared for the challenge than the actor Quaid, who stars in Amazon Prime’s The Boys and is promoting his new action movie Novocaine.NASCAR media member Jay Arnold asked Neugebauer if he had talked to any of the many former college athletes that make up the NASCAR pit crews about their career choice. Neugebauer lit up in the media center and explained that people have been telling it about it all weekend but had yet to have a dialogue with a crew member.”People have been telling me about all of these, that all of these crews are made up of college athletes like football players and whatever else,” Neugebauer said. He added that he would love to lift one of the tires to see how heavy they are and better understand the physical demands put on the pit crews.”I need to talk to them, and I need to carry one of these tires or these fuel tanks,” Neugebauer told media members, including R&T. “I just want to see how heavy it is because it looks heavy as hell. Then being able to like do these pit stops in like eight to nine seconds, insane. I want to experience that. As an ex-college athlete myself, I need to try and lift one of these things.Meg Oliphant//Getty ImagesJack Quaid laughs while answering the media’s question before his first time acting as Grand Marshall of a NASCAR race at the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at COTA.Quaid chimed in, saying he would also like to lift a tire but may be disadvantaged compared to professional athletes.”I would also like to attempt but…” Quaid then gestures to his frame. The duo decided that Quaid could do fuel instead, and as Neugebauer joked they could finish the stop in a second, Quaid countered he would take an hour. Related StoriesVictoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.
