Former NFL player Marshall McFadden knew absolutely nothing about NASCAR before stepping into racing. Neither did Super Bowl champion safety Josh Bush.
But now, the two Trackhouse Racing pit crew members are part of a growing group of retired athletes finding a new career in racing, and they’ll both be in the pit for Sunday’s Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono race.
After retiring from football after a three-year NFL career and one year in the CFL, McFadden moved back home to Charlotte, N.C., the home base of NASCAR, to figure out his next steps. A friend of his, Curtis Walls, had gotten involved with NASCAR years earlier and became a pit crew coach. He invited McFadden to come along to a team practice, and McFadden was immediately intrigued.
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“It’s a team, about 20-25 guys,” McFadden said. “They were all out in the car. They looked like me, athletic, big, fast, strong. The music was going. They had their own training facility, coaches. It was almost like everything that I left off from football, and I was like, ‘This might be a smooth transition for me.’”
McFadden kept working, and after a few months, the coaches pulled him aside to see just how serious he was about pursuing pitting. Soon after that, McFadden signed his first professional contract, and eight years later he works with Ross Chastain’s No. 1 car crew through Trackhouse Racing every Sunday.
Bush also found his way to racing through a friend. He grew up in Lexington, N.C., near the Richard Childress Racing facility, but had never seen a race before meeting NASCAR driver Austin Dillon while doing nonprofit work. The two struck up a friendship at a Thanksgiving charity event, and eventually started golfing together.
“He just kept asking me, ‘Hey, would you be interested in joining NASCAR?’” said Bush, who played for the Jets and Broncos in a five-year NFL career.
Initially, Bush wasn’t interested. Instead, he planned to try out football coaching, and got an internship with the Las Vegas Raiders — which was promptly canceled, thanks to COVID. Left with nothing to do but golf, often with Dillon, he finally decided to jump into racing.
Now, Bush is expanding past just the pit crew for Daniel Suárez‘s No. 99 car. After finishing morning pit crew practice, he also works in sponsorship and marketing at Trackhouse Racing, and even gives tours of the facility.
Making the leap
So what actually makes a good pit crew member? It’s not just ex-football players who are succeeding in the role, but when making tire changes or replacing broken parts, every second counts. Literally. That means athletes with explosive speed are a premium.
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“Marshall [McFadden], running around the car for him looks effortless,” pit crew captain Shane Wilson said. “It looks so easy for him to run at a very high pace around a car. Other people look like they’re doing everything they can do to get to the same speed as somebody like him, because he’s trained so long in quickness and agility and speed and strength.”
Many athletes come into NASCAR knowing little about racing or cars, like Bush or McFadden, so learning how to make the corrections necessary can be challenging.
McFadden said he had to learn to “fail fast,” and unlike football, there’s no one there to back you up if you make a mistake. But Wilson said athletes are uniquely suited to meet the moment.
“That’s pressure that you can’t just learn,” Wilson said. “That’s something that’s bred into you. That translates really well into pit stops. You come down with five laps to go in a race, and it’s all on the pit crew to send the driver back out in the spot they were at or even better. That’s a different type of switch that gets turned on in their head. Athletes are really good at being prepared for that situation and not letting the moment be too big.”
