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Between 24-hour shifts at the fire
department, Knarich runs Pit Crew,
a business he started in 1990.
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Pit Crew Tire is a one-man
operation, and that man is Craig Knarich, a
mustached, multitasking firefighter who
walks as fast as most people run.
He's like a delivery guy
for the tire industry, bringing new wheels
to customers who are too busy to take their
Jaguar or Corvette to the garage. He is not,
he is quick to point out, in the business of
rescuing people who run over rusty nails.
That's for AAA.
Between 24-hour shifts at
the fire department, Knarich, 44, runs Pit
Crew (www.pitcrewtire.com),
a business he started in 1990. When a client
makes an appointment, he'll drive to their
office, their house or wherever their car is
parked and install their tires on the spot.
Half the time, he doesn't even see his
customers.
Only once has he put new
tires on the wrong car. That was when there
were two Mercedes in an office parking lot.
Knarich ate the cost on
that one.
Most of his customers own
high-end cars and have busy work schedules
or small children who would be less than
amenable to sitting around a tire
dealership. "I provide the nicest waiting
room in the industry," said Knarich, a Palm
Harbor resident who's married and has three
children and one grandchild.
When customers call for an
appointment, most know how many tires they
need and what brand they prefer. If they
don't, Knarich talks them through an at-home
tire assessment
Knarich's headquarters is
his Isuzu step truck, its rear 128 square
feet crammed with $65,000 of equipment,
including a spin balancer, a nitrogen
generator and a toolbox with about a billion
types of lug nuts. Everything is bolted
down.
The electronic marquee on
the front of the truck has a seven-minute
loop of messages. "Need tires?" it says. "We
come to you." (It also has snarky messages
like "Professional firefighters bust theirs
to save yours." But that's beside the
point.)
Knarich will drive to jobs
throughout most of Pinellas, west
Hillsborough and southwest Pasco counties,
and farther if the customer will pay a
service fee.
Business is so good he is
thinking of expanding, maybe by recruiting a
few guys to be owner-operators of their own
trucks.
Craig
Knarich, owner of Pit Crew tire, changes
the tires on a 1979 Corvette. he started
the business in 1990.
