After Football, Ben Braden Is Now Ready and Refueled to Excel in IndyCar

There’s really no other way to describe Ben Braden today than as a motorsports mass monster. At 6’7″, 330 pounds, he obviously stands out while navigating pit lane on the IndyCar circuit, looking better suited for protecting quarterbacks instead of being a technique-driven specialist fueling Marcus Armstrong’s No. 66 Honda.

And technically, you’d be correct. Before his current role as a member of Meyer Shank Racing, Braden was a University of Michigan offensive lineman, who dreamed of hearing his name called on NFL draft, but instead signed as an undrafted free agent, spending six years in the league before a severe spinal injury forced him into early retirement.

He’s since made a successful switch to racing, enjoying his first season as the team’s fueler. He still gets to put on a helmet several Sundays a year. Now it’s an entirely new role, but with the same sports mindset. “It’s so nice,” the gas-toting giant says of his new role. “There’s still a competitive edge to all this. The intensity, attention to detail, and focus are all very similar to football, which made the transition easier.”

Braden’s path to IndyCar is one of those stories where the weight room accidentally became his career-changing boardroom. His first break came while he was training in Indianapolis during his playing days, he would often run into race team owner Ed Carpenter, who was training at the same gym. When his football career ended, Braden reached out to one of racing’s icons, who then gave him his first break in 2023.

He says his only experience was working on cars since high school. The sport was, and still is, relatively new to him, but he’s getting the feel for fuel, and it’s not too far off from football. “I had no idea at first,” he says. “Once they kind of started explaining to me how it works, technique-wise, it all started clicking. It was stuff I remembered from football.”

Now responsible for fueling during pit stops, Braden’s noticing even more nuanced similarities between being a lineman in football and creating a successful pit stop.

“One of the things that really translated from the NFL to this was people don’t realize fueling is a lot of footwork,” he says. “It’s a lot of the same footwork. The fundamentals and mechanics transfer over, so it was really nice to do something that was different than what I had done, but at the same time felt really natural.”

His back is no longer a concern, which helps his performance in the pits, which means Braden can worry a little less about long-term effects from this football-related damage. And while the risk of severe injury is lower, racing still remains a high-risk sport. Anything can happen at any moment. One rookie mistake came while working on the car in shorts; a quick leg burn ended that habit, but he’s still reminded of the hazards by the occasional bout of bloodshed from carbon-fiber splinters.

“Carbon fiber is extremely sharp, and they’re 10 times worse than wooden splinters,” he says. “They don’t want to come out. They break really easy, and you’re sitting there for a week while your body works it out.”

Abrupbly Walking Away from Football—But On Ben Braden’s Own Terms

While Braden’s massive size once allowed him to blend in alongside his band of behemoths on the Wolverines’ offensive line, navigating pit road in Meyer Shank orange and black makes it nearly impossible for him not to draw stares. It also doesn’t help that he bears a slight resemblance to 2018 World’s Strongest Man winner Hafthor Julius Bjornsson. 

“They’ve been calling me ‘Thor’ since the NFL,” he says, laughing. “I definitely get that a lot.”

He also gets peppered with the usual big-man questions. In addition to “How tall are you?” he’s often asked, “What do you bench?”

Braden’s numbers are a lot lower these days. Being tasked with carrying a 90-pound fuel rig and fueling the No. 66 Honda is a much different responsibility than repelling pass rushers from college and NFL backfields.

Back when he was preparing for his shot at the NFL, though, the big man was putting up top numbers. At the 2017 NFL Combine, the second-team All–Big Ten offensive guard knocked out 25 reps on the bench press while also running a 5.04 in the 40-yard dash at a listed weight of 329 pounds. (For reference, although he recorded one fewer rep, his 40 time was slightly faster than current Buffalo Bills perennial Pro Bowl offensive lineman Dion Dawkins.)

Unfortunately, while NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced the names of future stars in the first round of the 2017 draft—including Myles Garrett, Christian McCaffrey, and Patrick Mahomes—Braden’s phone remained silent. Following a disappointing draft, he signed as an undrafted free agent with the New York Jets, where he spent two seasons primarily on the practice squad. In 2020 he signed with the Green Bay Packers, playing in nine games in 2021, mostly on special teams. The next year he signed with the Denver Broncos, but an injury forced the team to cut him prior to the season opener.=

The injury—a shattered vertebra—was severe enough that it reduced Braden to nothing but short walks over a four-month period. With a wife and two kids, along with the threat of paralysis a real possibility if he continued playing, the decision to walk away—while he could still walk—became much easier.

“You don’t ever want to admit that you’re not invincible,” he says. “But at the same time, I didn’t want to be paralyzed at 29. Freak things can happen to anybody. I have two kids and a wife. I knew I had a long life ahead of me. Nobody plays football for their entire life.”

Changing Careers Began by Changing Tires

Once he made the decision to leave football, getting back into a routine was difficult without the day-to-day training discipline the sport had always provided. “The first three or four months was really tough,” he admits. “Everyone will tell you, when you leave the NFL, it’s definitely different.”

The abrupt exit pushed Braden to make a fast decision about his future. “My wife was kind of like, you need to figure something out.”

It’s when reached out to Ed Carpenter. who gave an opportunity to work in the garage and on pit lane.

“Pit crew was one of the first things they had me work on,” he recalls. “I was fueling and just changing tires so they could see what I could do and what I was comfortable with. That obviously went really well.”

For three years at ECR, he had a mixed role, from changing tires to carrying the nearly 100-pound fuel tank, even doing some light mechanic work in the garage. Braden was learning that being on the pit crew was about much more than just lifting tires and tanks—it required a high level of athleticism.

Leagues like NASCAR were already ahead in recruiting former Division I athletes to work full-time as pit-crew members, with more than 90 percent of its pit crews comprised of ex–college athletes. IndyCar is starting to catch up, thanks in part to Carpenter and Meyer Shank co-owner Michael Shank, who in 2025 called for teams to start reling less on mechanics doing double duty and to begin flying in pit-crew specialists for races.

Getting a car in and out of the pit in roughly eight seconds requires consistent timing, footwork, and execution. These were skills and techniques Braden had already honed at both Michigan and in the NFL. He’s a prime example of IndyCar’s shift toward former athletes playing key roles. While his play count is much lower than in football, each pit stop carries the importance of a fourth-and-goal. There’s no margin for error.

“The tolerances for getting the probe into the car is extremely tight,” he says. “It’s a lot more touch and feel and timing versus raw strength.”

He enjoyed his time with ECR and was grateful for the opportunity he was given. But when Meyer Shank reached out with a more expansive role—including the full-time fueler spot—it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I made the move to Meyer Shank in October,” he says, “and it’s been great to really be able to focus more on the fueling aspects.”

He Stopped Pass Rushers, Now Ben Braden Rushes His Driver Out of the Pits

In his first year as anchor of the No. 66 pit crew, Braden is easing into giving his new “quarterback”—5’10”, 142-pound Marcus Armstrong—the best shot at victory each weekend. With the next race scheduled for May 9 on the Indianapolis Road Course, getting Armstrong back on track as quickly and efficiently as possible is the objective, especially with the Indianapolis 500 looming. Although racing and football are on different ends of the sports spectrum, Braden sees clear similarities between a top driver and an elite quarterback.

“Being an elite athlete, you have to be very competitive and driven,” he says. “Marcus and I are still getting to know each other. After our first race together, we talked afterward and it was nice to kind of get an idea of what you do and don’t like. Will it bother you if I do this or that? Just starting that line of communication was very important as an athlete.”

Helping him with his switch to racing has been another football staple: film study. It’s been an off-track training element he’s leaned on since high school. His work in the film room was elevated to a new level during his time at Michigan under then-coach Jim Harbaugh. “You were running 65 or 70 plays, and every little detail gets just absolutely torn apart,” he recalls.

Earning second-team all-conference honors, the extra effort paid off. In racing, he’s doing it all over again. “We actually have a camera that records our pit stop,” he says. “It’s very similar to watching practice. You can get different angles. You can watch your feet and your hands and the timing.”

After film, he goes back to footwork. Just like anticipating an oncoming pass rush, every pit stop is meticulously broken down step by step to shave valuable time off Armstrong’s visit. “During practice, I’ll be trying to find where I want to position my feet, where’s my starting point, and then from there, do I need to adjust if there’s a car behind us,” he says. “Just like football, my inside foot is the starting point. I want to make sure that before I plug in, my feet are where they should be, and then I’ll scoot toward the wall so that there’s clearance for the car to come in.”

Ben Braden Remains a Lot of Power with a Bit of Finesse

With his lower back now fully healed, Braden says he can handle his new role at Meyer Shank at 100 percent full effort. But, at age 32, Braden’s learned to train smart, eliminating high-risk moves that may trigger a relapse. “I don’t back squat anymore a whole lot anymore because of the injuries from playing football,” he says.

That doesn’t mean Braden skips leg day. As a fueler, core and lower-body work remain the key elements to executing a successful pit stop each timer Armstrong pulls in.

While he adds leg presses and hack squats as alternatives, lunges have become the training staple that best simulates his work in the pits:

“I’ll always do forward and lateral lunges,” he says. “A lot of what I’m doing is transitioning and twisting my lower body and being able to push off. I have to be able to hold that weight and be able to move my legs while holding it.”

He still hits the bench—albeit a bit lighter now, again thanks to football wear and tear—as part of his Monday upper-body routine, which also includes delts and shoulders. “I’ll either do incline, decline or flat bench,” he says of his chest work. “And I always try and do some upper-body stretching and some sort of shoulder work.”

He’ll cap off his training day with  capped with a 20-minute, low-intensity treadmill walk. The rest of the week includes a back day, a cardio-focused day, additional shoulder work, and his final workout dedicated solely to arms. “Friday’s a fun day,” he says.

With his size and his history of opening holes for running backs with his massive power and precision technique, adding his football skills to the racetrack has been eye-opening opportunity the fueler known as “Thor” isn’t taking for granted, While it still takes pro-athlete-level strength to perform his role, Braden, IndyCar has finally beginning to master the fine details of his craft. with his football-driven intangibles, h’s even added bit of savviness in helping push the No. 66 out of the pits—and hopefully into the winner’s circle.

“Some people think the harder you can throw the hose into the car, the better—that’s actually not the case,” he says. “It’s really more of feel and finesse. The old saying that ‘slow is smooth, smooth is fast’ is very true. You want to be as slow and smooth as you can. because it’s kind of weird, but it feels like the hose will just find its way in there.”