COURTESY JAKOB PRALL

“I thought my whole world was collapsing,” Prall says. “I was like, ‘oh my gosh, everything I’ve worked for playing football for the past 16 years is coming to an end,’ and I didn’t see how I would transition out of that.”

But just six months later, on February 19, 2023, he competed at the Daytona International Speedway as a member of a NASCAR Pit Crew for pro driver Chris Buescher of Charlotte, N.C.–based RFK Racing.

Prall’s immersion into the NASCAR universe reflects a larger trend of collegiate football athletes who have switched gears to switching tires. While the two forms of competition may on the surface appear to have little in common, they overlap in their paramount reliance on teamwork, coordination, strength, speed, and repeatability.

“I knew they wanted athletes and that’s why I was able to transition,” Prall explains, “because all those qualities that I used in football translate almost one-to-one in pit crews.”

Prall also believes his status as an Ivy League graduate helped, observing that since his arrival they’ve begun specifically targeting former Ivy football players to pit crews.

“They’re wanting guys to think on their feet,” Prall says. “Everything happens in a split second in both sports—football and being in a pit crew—so being able to process those things and understand what’s going on and react to that, although it’s not like a test or analytics on an Excel sheet, your brain is able to process that faster and that’s what they really like.

PHOTO: DavID Silverman

“During a pit stop, you’re pretty much analyzing every tenth of a second that can be gained or lost,” he adds. “And that can be the difference between winning or losing the race.”

Within the pit crew, Prall says that former football players gravitate towards different roles depending on their previous position. Wide receivers like himself, with quick hands and superb coordination, transition well into the role of tire changer, while defensive ends or linebackers transition better into the role of the tire carrier or jackman—the latter referring to the member that raises the car off the ground to allow for the tires to be changed.

Prall’s adjustment to the new routine was to attempt to become “more of an endurance athlete than an interval athlete,” citing longer days and the need to be ready to perform at any given moment. When he started as a tire changer, he would often find himself feeling sick and dizzy. “We’re in those fire suits, and on a 90-degree day you’re sweating just about every ounce of water in your body,” Prall says, estimating he burns about 4,500 to 5,000 calories each race.

This fall, Prall is completing his second season suiting up for Buescher, who on September 15 earned a victory at Watkins Glen International. “It was a quick transition, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. It’s absolutely amazing.”