Ed Watkins lettered in football, basketball and baseball in his time at Midlothian High School. After graduating in 1993, he went on to have a successful collegiate football career at Eastern Carolina University as the team’s center. It was there in North Carolina, that he found his first job out of college. He became the first team member hired on with Gillett Evernham Motorsports, and it is with that team that he has found his niche. 

Watkins just wrapped up his 11th year as jack-man with the team, working on the No. 19 Sprint Cup car driven by Elliot Sadler. But what do playing football and NASCAR racing have in common? As it turns out, more than one would think.

Offensive linemen have to be big and strong. They’re the ones protecting the quarterback and opening holes for the running game. It helps if they’re quick because it takes just a matter of seconds for plays to develop at the line of scrimmage. And as centers, players have to be consistent because plays start on a good snap but often end on a bad snap.
The jackman on a NASCAR team possesses many of the same qualities. 

He’s the first pit crew member over the wall on each stop. He’s charged with lifting one side of a 3,400-pound car with one pump of the jack. He has to be consistent in his pumps because just a fraction of a centimeter off the normal alignment can throw the rest of the team and the stop off.  And he has to get around to, pump, lift and lower both sides of the car in 12 seconds or less.

“He’s the anchor, just like a center in the offensive line,” Watkins said. “Everything is flowing off him. You have to be big, strong and fast. Fortunately, I’ve been able to keep up physically.”

Watkins and his team do two-a-day practices throughout the year, much like football teams. Tuesday and Wednesday they hit the weight room in the morning doing exercises to get faster and stronger and adding in some stretching. By afternoon, they are out doing practice pit-stop runs. On Thursday, they taper practices down a bit and take Friday as a rest day. Saturday is often reserved for a little extra practice or for travel, depending on how far away and when the race is. Sunday is race day and by Monday, they’re in the film room, breaking down tape and finding places to fine-tune their game.

“We’re looking at body positions and steps,” Watkins said. “We’re breaking the tape down into 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-tenths of a second. One second on the race track is equal to travelling a football field. We break it down to where we can put together half a second, which is huge on pit road.”

Midlothian High School graduate Ed Watkins is now the jack-man for the No. 19 Dodge Charger of Elliot Sadler. – Photo courtesy of Allstate

Watkins first entered the racing scene in college. He worked summers and other college breaks for Donleavy Racing in Richmond, which is where he caught the racing bug. He enjoyed his work so much that after his college football eligibility expired, he started knocking on doors in the Charlotte, N.C. area, which is where he found Ray Evernham.

“I just went from shop to shop, knocking on doors,” Watkins explained. “I was actually the first pit crew member hired [at Gillett Evernham Motorsports].”

He’s been with the team for 11 years now and according to other pit crew members, he’s become a crucial and beloved member of the No. 19 team.

“I worked on the Evernham truck team for a year and then when I moved up [to the Sprint Cup car] Ed was one of the first guys I met. He’s one of those guys that everybody likes, and everyone in the garage knows him and respects him. We started talking and became very good friends.” teammate Chris Moore said. Moore is the gas-man for the No. 19 car. Watkins and his wife Vonda are actually the godparents to Moore’s kids, which Moore and Watkins both say is pretty typical of the close-knit group.

There is little doubt that pit crews have some of the most intense jobs in sports. The guys work hard but part of working so closely together for so much of the year is also about knowing when to have fun. Moore and Watkins often ride together to the airport on those early Sunday mornings – the day starts around 4:30 a.m. – and Moore says they are each other’s back-up alarm clock. On the airplanes, they either sleep or annoy the other passengers who are trying to sleep.

“We all have PSPs (PlayStation Portable games). You can link 16 people on them and there’s 10 of us that all play this fighting game [on the airplane trips],” Moore said. “Here we are yelling at each other and [other people are] trying to sleep. That starts out our day and then we get to the race track and get breakfast and then the working day begins.”

When it’s time to work, Watkins helps get the crew settled down and focused.

“One good thing about Ed is that he knows how to differentiate work from friendship,” Moore said. “He played football so he’s used to the high intensity and getting yelled at by coaches. He’s the leader of our team. He takes charge when we’re on the road … he’s like a coach. If you don’t do your job, he’s in your ear … off the track he’s pretty down to earth. He’s a good family man.”

That work ethic is why he and the team were a natural to spearhead the Allstate Good Driver Program Safety Patrol as a separate project from their normal NASCAR duties this season. As jack-man and as the first pit crew member over the wall on race stops, Watkins often starts his work mere inches from other cars on pit road, which are moving past him at highway speeds. For Watkins and all the other jack-men and pit crew members, safe driving on the part of all of the drivers is paramount.

“You’re not even aware of the other cars,” Watkins said. “You’re so focused. It’s an orchestrated ballet out there. [Cars] are going by you at highway speeds [so] all the dangers we have on pit road, it worked great with the way Allstate has been promoting the safe driving program.”

Ed Watkins, right, and teammate Chris Moore, center, talk with a customer during a recent stop by the Safety Patrol. The crew of the No. 19 Dodge Charger driven by Elliot Sadler helped promote Allstate’s Good-Driver program with complimentary gas cards, window washes, tire shines and photo ops at three gas stations across the country this summer. – Photo courtesy of Allstate

Drivers earn a reward check from Allstate Insurance for every six months they go without an accident. As a sponsor of the No. 19 car, Allstate brought the pit crew out as Safety Patrol at three gas stations around the country. The team made stops in New York, Pennsylvania and Arizona. At each stop, they would look for drivers using direction lights as they made their turns into the stations and wearing seatbelts. Those drivers would get a tip sheet of further safe driving skills, a window wash and tire shine from the pit crew members, a quick picture taken with the guys and a gas card. Watkins proved pretty popular with the crowds and said he enjoyed meeting the fans.

“It’s been a blast,” Watkins said. “I can’t stress how much fun it is out there, seeing how loyal these fans are. That’s the real beauty of NASCAR, just how personable the sport is to their fans.”

Watkins and the No. 19 crew enjoyed a week off at the end of the NASCAR season but were back to work as of Dec. 1 getting ready for the next season. They’ll be back in the gym and on the wall, trying to shave some more time off their pit stops. For all the work that goes into a NASCAR season, Watkins says he doesn’t get back to the area as much as he’d like but that his parents Sherrill and Sue keep him up to date.

“When I was playing sports and growing up, we had a tremendous little league baseball team,” Watkins recalled. “We played in the Huguenot Little League and won the state championship one year. Then we all grew up together, all went to Midlothian High School together and had a darned good baseball team. Then when I started getting bigger, I enjoyed playing football, and when I realized I wanted to play college athletics, I put all my emphasis on football my junior and senior year.

“My experience at Midlothian High School was awesome with the exposure and the opportunity to play college football,” Watkins continued. “Then, coming down to North Carolina, I was able to pursue my love of racing.”

The next racing season will certainly be an interesting one for the Watkins family. They are expecting a new addition to their family around the first weekend of February – the same weekend as the Daytona 500.

“That should be interesting,” Moore said. “His life is going to change tremendously.”