In professional and college sports, it’s called “crunch time” — that moment when the scrutiny is intense and the pressure to perform is at its peak.

NASCAR crew members face that challenge in every race when they go over the wall to change tires, fill gas tanks and make necessary adjustments and repairs, often in less than 15 seconds.

With championships and millions of dollars at stake, teams in Nextel Cup, the Busch Series and the Craftsman Truck Series are all looking for the most athletic crew members they can find. And what better place to find them than in pro and college sports?

“It’s changed a lot,” said Robbie Loomis, a former championship crew chief who is now a vice president at Petty Enterprises. “It used to be the pit crew hardly even worked out. They were just mechanics in the race shop, guys with beer bellies.

“Then, before you know it, we got a group of guys working on a training program, working out, doing push-ups, sit-ups and running a little bit. Now we have a trainer who works them out, we have a nutritionist for them and we also have a pit crew coach. So we know we have three people who focus on their bodies so that when they go to Darlington and put tires on every 20 laps they can be in shape at the end of the day.”

The teams with big-dollar budgets often hire people just for the race day crew. Teams with less money and resources use people for over-the-wall duty who work the rest of the week in their race shops. No matter, they all work out and practice throughout the week for what is one of the most critical jobs in racing.

Nate Bolling is part of the trend toward more athleticism in the over-the-wall crews.

The former football player at Wake Forest and in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins is now the jackman for the No. 10 Cup team fielded by Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

“We have five guys who are former college and pro athletes, from baseball to hockey to football,” he said. “That’s a little more than the average, but most pit crews have one or two guys nowadays who come from some form of collegiate or professional athletics.”

Tim Goad, jackman for the No. 77 Busch car and full-time pit coach and trainer for Kevin Harvick Inc., played at North Carolina and then spent 10 years in the NFL.

“If you look at it, the movements around the car are similar to football, basketball, baseball, track,” he explained. “You’re not running a straight line, you’re shuffling, moving, twisting, turning, jumping down, getting up. It’s all athletic-type movements. And those guys with an athletic background pick up quicker what we’re trying to do on pit stops.”

Body types often determine the job a crew person is trained for.

“Your heavier, beefier, stronger guys are going to be jackmen and gasmen,” Goad said. “They’re your lineman type. Your shorter, skinnier guys are going to be tire changers. And your taller, bulkier guys, like linebackers or tight ends, will be your tire carriers. You kind of want a catch can guy to be tall, too. But the athletic movement is what you look for first.”

Jonathan Billy, a front tire changer for Gillett Evernham Motorsports, was a professional hockey player before he came to NASCAR.

“It’s 100 percent vital to be in shape and to be athletic because the way the sport is,” Billy said. “Working out, eating right, conditioning is a big, big part of it now.

“Coming from an athletic background makes it easier to transition into that. We’re always trying to get bigger, faster, stronger, just like a football player or a hockey player or anything. The bigger, faster, stronger you are, the better you are on pit road and the happier everybody is, crew chief, driver, everybody.”

Whether they played ball or not, though, every crew member feels the pressure to get it right on race day.

“It’s orchestrated chaos out there and there’s a number of things that can go wrong,” Goad said. “You can have a gun malfunction, you can have a jack malfunction, a tire can get away, the driver can stop in the wrong spot and everybody has to readjust. There’s a lot of human factors involved.

“When it goes smooth and everything goes according to plan, it can be very graceful. But, very rarely does that happen.”

Having a background in athletics can also be a big help when things do go wrong.

“It’s as intense as it can be out there,” said Eric Maycroft, a front tire changer on the No. 10 car and a former pitcher at Wake Forest.

“If you’ve got 40 cars on pit road, you’re dodging traffic and everybody is coming in, coming out, doing different things,” he said. “But, if you’re the only one on pit road, all eyes are on you. And those are all your friends up and down pit road, too, so there’s just as much pressure then, too.

“Most anybody can come out and do a normal pit stop. But the athleticism comes in when something goes wrong; When the driver slides through the pits a little bit, if the hose is a little bit out of the way or there’s a couple of lug nuts out of place or in the way. Then you can use your athleticism to keep those situations from turning into really bad pit stops. You can just make it an average pit stop or just a little bad.”

Bolling agreed, adding, “It’s hard to do but, with our background, we can put outside forces at the back of our mind and concentrate on the task at hand. In other sports, they call it being in a zone. There’s a zone in this sport, too. You have to be able to eliminate everything that doesn’t concern you and do your job as best you can.

“It’s like a defensive back. You have to have a short memory. If you don’t, you’re going to dwell on it and be bad the rest of the day.”

And it probably doesn’t help that thousands of people at the track and possibly millions more on television are watching.

“I played in front of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people in hockey, but there’s so many more at the track, so it’s magnified,” Billy said. “But, when you’re trained in competitive sports, you’re trained to be mentally tough as well as physically tough. When you make the transition to a new sport, there’s a lot to learn. But the mental part was kind of second nature.”

Bolling also pointed out another way being an over-the-wall crew person is similar to pro of college athletes.

“Don’t mess up too many times or you’ll be out of a job.”