{"id":97394,"date":"2025-08-26T03:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T03:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/97394\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T03:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T03:46:08","slug":"nascar-pit-crew-member-who-won-daytona-500-dies-at-35-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/97394\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR pit crew member who won Daytona 500 dies at 35 – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NASCAR<\/a> world was rocked on Monday with the news that Zachary Yager, who had worked throughout the National Series as a pit crew member since 2014, had died aged 35.<\/p>\n

Yager, who was from Lima, New York<\/a>, had been working for Elite Race Services, which supplies pit crews to NASCAR teams. Following the news of his untimely death, ERS\u2019 owner, Cory DeMarco, told TobyChristie.com<\/a> that they were \u201cin total disbelief.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the guys send our thoughts and prayers out to his dad and family, right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement was also released by ThorSport Racing, which currently competes in the Craftsman Truck Series, and with whom Yager had been working this season as a jackman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply saddened by the unexpected passing of our friend and teammate, Zachary Yager,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cHe was an important part of our family, and our hearts are with his loved ones and community as we grieve this loss together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with ThorSport, Yager had also been working with Ryan Sieg and RSS Racing in the Xfinity Series in 2025.<\/p>\n

Yager\u2019s cause of death is currently not publicly known. According to TobyChristie, his family had reported him missing on social media as of August 18.<\/p>\n

In early August, ahead of NASCAR\u2019s races at Watkins Glen, Yager spoke with a local NBC affiliate<\/a>, reflecting upon his journey, which all began after he graduated from high school, when his cousin asked for help.<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS…<\/p>\n

\u201cMy cousin called me up one day and was like, \u2018Could you do this?\u2019 and I was like, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019ll do it,\u2019 and he\u2019s like, \u2018Alright, I need you here in two weeks.\u2019 So, I packed up my little two-door Honda Civic and drove down to Charlotte, and I\u2019ve been here ever since,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Yager also opened up on the pressure pit crew members face in the heat of the moment, admitting, \u201cIt\u2019s a big part of it, but I mean that\u2019s why we do it, right? That\u2019s what we got into it for. We wanted to be important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to Watkins Glen, Yager said the trips back home were usually \u201ca lot of fun,\u201d calling the road course, \u201cDefinitely one of my favorite places to go, mainly because I feel like the atmosphere there has never really changed, it sells out every year, and no matter what, the fans are great. There\u2019s always a ton of people there, and it\u2019s a cool showing and a cool weekend to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Yager\u2019s career, he also worked for the likes of Richard Childress Racing, Team Penske, GoFas Racing, RFK Racing, and JTG Daughterty Racing. While with JTG in 2023, he was a member of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.\u2019s team, which won the Daytona 500 after qualifying 35th. The team currently competes as Hyak Motorsports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NASCAR world was rocked on Monday with the news that Zachary Yager, who had worked throughout the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,19546,2332,634,82,56654,56655],"class_list":{"0":"post-97394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-daytona-500","11":"tag-motorsport-section","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-thorsport-racing","15":"tag-zachary-yager"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}