When it comes to successful Winston Cup teams, often when you win, you lose. All teams crave wins and championships, and the teams that are successful often become the targets of the teams that are not.

Winning drivers are courted by other car owners. And even more frequently, teams that suffer on pit road go after crew members who excel in that area.

In recent years, trading pit members has become a high-dollar bidding war. In fact, one of the most difficult tasks for many teams at the end of a season is retaining its existing crew.

Pit crews have made tremendous gains over the years, while shortening the amount of time they spend completing a typical pit stop: four tire changes and a refueling.

“It’s really unbelievable how important pit crews have become and how much time and effort you have to put into putting together good crews for your teams,” said Rick Hendrick, who owns one Busch and four Winston Cup teams.

And one team courting another team’s crew members certainly is not a new phenomenon.

At the end of the 1999 season, Robert Yates Racing hired five members of Jeff Gordon’s famed “Rainbow Warriors” over-the-wall crew in an effort to improve driver Dale Jarrett’s pit road stops.

After driver Matt Kenseth’s pit crew won the World Pit Crew Competition the past two seasons, two of his pit crew members were lured away to other teams this season. Kenseth’s team goes for its third consecutive pit crew championship Saturday at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham.

Owners and crew chiefs say the key to retaining good personnel is providing a work environment that entices them to stay where they are, not take the highest offer from a competitor.

Ryan Newman's pit crew changes tires during a stop in the Pennsylvania 500 in July. When NASCAR Winston Cup teams are successful, other teams often try to hire away members of that team's pit crew.

“It’s always going to be a problem,” Hendrick said. “You’ll have a guy who is a good tire changer and you have an owner who needs a good tire changer, and people offer them money to switch.

“You have to give these guys a good place to work and give them good pay. You offer incentives to help. The one thing you can’t control is injuries, and as a team you have to be prepared for that as well.”

Matt Borland, crew chief for driver Ryan Newman, who leads the Cup series with eight wins this season, said money wasn’t always the deciding factor when pit crew members considered their future.

“Ninety percent of the guys aren’t there to make more money. They want to be in a situation where they are contributing to wins and make the whole team look better,” Borland said.

“To keep guys motivated, they know we’re going to be running for championships and wins and running for poles. That fuels the fire in competitive guys.”

Robbie Loomis, crew chief for four-time Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 Chevrolet, said contracts had become as commonplace with crew members as with drivers.

“With a contract, you can’t be wooed by another team as easily,” he said. “It’s too bad it comes to that sometimes, but if you have a team that works well together, that is awfully hard to replace.”