The errors came at different stages of Sunday's Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway, and they brought very different reactions.
On the first pit stop in the race, Dale Jarrett's crew had only two of five lug nuts tight on his left-front tire when the car was let down off the jack. Jarrett took off but had to come back down pit road to get the tire on tight and dropped to 34th place.
What did crew chief Todd Parrott say to his crew?
"I didn't say one word to them about it," Parrott said. "They knew what they needed to do."
Jarrett's crew, most of whom were part of Jeff Gordon's "Rainbow Warriors" team until coming over to pit Jarrett's car before last season, did know what they had to do to. They'd made the one mistake they could afford to make in Sunday's race, and they spent the rest of the afternoon helping Jarrett get back into contention.
When it came down to the critical moment, on the final pit stop of the day, Jarrett's team ripped off a 14.2-second stop and got the No. 88 Ford off pit road first, the key to Jarrett's victory.
One yellow flag earlier, Johnny Benson came to pit road as the race leader. Crew chief James Ince had Benson stop on Lap 191 at the start of a round of green-flag stops to allow Benson to pick up more ground with fresh tires while the rest of the leaders were hanging on with old tires. The strategy had paid off and, had the race stayed green, Benson might well have scored his first Winston Cup win.
On the yellow on Lap 225, however, Benson's pit crew had a lug nut on a right-side tire fall off. A NASCAR official alerted the crew, allowing the mistake to be fixed immediately. That kept Benson from having to make a second trip to pit road, but it dropped him from first to eighth and ruined his chance to win.
How did Ince react? He rounded up Gordon's current crew, who were free because Gordon's car had dropped out of the race, and had them pit the car on the final stop.
"I feel like this is three races in a row that we've had opportunities to win that we've hurt ourselves," Ince said. "Right now, we're just searching to find whatever we've got to do to win races."
Benson is tied with Sterling Marlin for second in points and the team has continued the progress that made it one of last year's surprises.
If it's going to stay among the sport's elite like Jarrett's team it has to start coming through in the clutch. Ince knows that. And now, his pit crew does, too.
l Skinner crash: Yes, Mike Skinner was wearing a head-and-neck restraint system Sunday. With flames burning underneath his wrecked Chevrolet at the bottom of Turn 3 after his late-race crash, there were some anxious moments as fans waited to see him climb out. Skinner did get out.
It seems logical, however, to continue to work on ways to make it easier for drivers to get out of the head and neck restraints after crashes. It makes even more sense, however, to look at making the left-side window opening larger to make it easier for anybody to get out, no matter what they are or are not wearing.
It makes still more sense to work on ways to get emergency equipment to the scene of a crash faster with equipment to put out a fire in the first place.
Rookies: If you're keeping score, rookie drivers finished 14th, 28th, 30th, 39th and 42nd on Sunday at Darlington.
Asked if the track had lived up to its tough reputation, Kurt Busch said yes. "I wish I was born in 1901 so I could have raced on this place in the '20s and '30s when it was supposed to be raced on," said Busch, who took 30th.
The track actually opened in 1950, but you get his point.
That will cost them: Ryan Newman and Tim Fedewa were each fined $5,000 by NASCAR on Monday for running into each other's cars during the cool-down lap after Saturday's Grand National race at Darlington. Newman was also placed on probation until Dec. 31.
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