| 01/28/2012 Nothing could be more basic than your care in maintaining records of the progress of your individual programs progress. Providing you indeed do have a program. So let's talk a bit about what a race program is. A program is, in it's simplest form, a goal oriented process of improvement. The first question you need ask yourself then is, what is my goal? If I may interject a thought. IMHO your goal should be "personal improvement". Yea, I know, it's much more cool to have the quickest car in your class or hold a world, track or national record. But there is a rub with that goal....it's a dead end street that terminates when the goal is obtained or it is always changing by rule from track to track. It normally will take you down the path of buying your horsepower, your bodywork and your chassis building. Anyone of these or all three, makes no difference. You've just limited you skill set and made a team manager out of yourself. While in and of itself there is nothing wrong with that, it does have it's afore mentioned limits. You may very well find during your journey that there is some particular part of the car you just don't have the talent for and must hire out. But why rob yourself of the opportunity to at least try. Don't give up until after you know for sure that this part of the build just isn't in the cards for you. Personal Growth. Yea, in part as a racer and individual but in this instance more a path that says "if I'm not quicker or more consistent than I was last week do I at least know why"? If you come away slower and clueless that is your clue you have work to do...personal work. Could also mean you've reached the potential of the package but by the time that happens you won't scratching your head asking such questions. If you think you know, make the adjustment and it doesn't improve...you don't know. You have work to do. I toss around the words goal and work like loose change in my pocket but your program will not and can not progress with out heaping helpings of both. That does not mean it can't be fun and it should be fun...always. It means be mindful of that goal and do the work required to reach it. I don't know about you but I feel an immense amount of personal satisfaction when I pull off a paint job I never though I could or run a number I thought was beyond me or my equipment. See an improvement in soldering skills with practice or change technique and or supplies. Let's get back to the first sentence. Record keeping. Since I started pounding this point each racer I meet I ask about his book. More often than not at this point he produces such a book where he has written in the car and the times, mph and such in it. Good!! Now do you know what it means? Where are your notes that tell you what you did to make an incremental improvement and what were those results? How many cars are you tying to chase? Study is part of racing. Reading and research can give you big leverage on your program. Learning new skills or brushing up on old ones. If you really want to excel you have to make some sacrifices. Your going to need a bucket load of patients with yourself and others and be willing to suffer some ridicule. Yea, people can be mean when your running your own program. Your also going to have to be brutally honest with yourself about what skills you have and haven't got and be willing to spend the time, energy and $$$ to develop the holes in your skill set(s). Your going to have to develop relationships and become a student, a very good student. This is the personal in personal growth that isn't part of the car. Be as honest with those trying to help you as you are with yourself. NO ONE starts in the basement and gets to the penthouse all on there own. You just don't become a stone mason without an apprenticeship and paying your dues. Your going to have to learn to step outside your comfort zone. Ask the uncomfortable questions. One of the biggest mistakes I see new guys make is spreading themselves to thin. Trying to eat the elephant whole. Trying to have a box full of cars like the number of cars you have is some sort of indication of your knowlege depth and experience. Impress yourself and let the others worry about the things that really don't matter. Expanding on this thought I hear constantly that building equipment is too expensive...com lathe...motor tools...chassis jigs and the like. I look at a guys box who hasn't the basic equipment to be self sufficient and see twenty or thirty cars or more. I wonder when I see a $10 chassis built on cheap warped jig that cost the guy $25 to $50 that resulted in a chassis that could be build on a marble tile more square and say to myself, if this guy had just one or two less ill prepared cars in his box he could have bought a precision, purpose built jig instead for under a hundred and had eighteen cars with well built chassis. With five less cars he could have had a power supply that actually works and a com lathe or tire machine and developed a few more useful skills that would have kept him in the race instead of eating hot dogs and watching while his car sits in the box and he shaking his head asking what happened. Yes, this tech isn't about parts of the car. It's about parts of your thinking and your mind is the most powerful and useful tool in your arsenal. Organize it, teach it, care for it and use it. Give it a goal to work towards and a chance to be successful at it. If you had but one car in your box and you found it wasn't working to well would you; 1.) Build another just like it? 2.) Build another unlike it? 3.) Rebuild it until it works? Correct answer is #3. Building another just like it, #1, is doing the same thing over the same way expecting a different result. Changing horses in the middle of the stream, #2, by changing the platform doesn't solve the basic issue and teaches you zero. Making subtitle changes until it works teaches you what does and doesn't work and if you keep careful notes WHY it didn't and what you did to make it right. Numbers 1 and 2 waste valuable $$$ and fill up you box with cars that just don't work while number three produces a car that is a teacher, successful and cost you some time and maybe some aggravation and tubing or wire to fix. If you treat each part of the car thus your focus is on becoming proficient at one platform and one power package at a time. It's hard enough to master one at a time without trying to be all things to all cars. I hold this back till last. IF you happen to be more advance already and are coaching a new guy....remember what it was like when you were new to the world. I know I look at a new builders work and see two dozen things he could improve upon and have to hold myself back from drowning him. Man, give the guy a chance. Have him run the car for you and watch what he does and what the car does. Have him take notes you help him write and give the guy, based on your observations, ONE thing to work on for next week. Show him how thoughtful, one at a time changes can be more predictable and rewarding. Don't drown him like a rat. |
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