What Working on a Race Team Taught Me.

I was going through some old pictures and found some from over 15, maybe even 20 years ago when I worked on a racing team running an Alcohol Fueled Funny Car running in the IHRA. Back then it was for the fun, the excitement, and the adrenaline. We never put the car on a dynamometer, but the rough estimate of the output of an engine in this class was in excess of 3,000 horsepower. 

I'm not going to tell you about racing here, what I wanted to talk about is what I learned as part of the team, and I learned a lot. 

You need help, I'm there for you:

We weren't there for just our team. Sure, we battled and competed with everyone else, but in racing, people help people. You need a part and I can spare it, it's yours. You're at the starting line and the engine won't start, all hands on deck to help. You have 45 minutes to get your car back to the line for the next run, call me if you need a hand. I saw this happen many times, teams helping teams. 

Attention to Detail:

A funny car is nothing more than a bunch of controlled nuclear detonations pushing a car down the track. Alcohol is 3,000 Horsepower and Top Fuel, well that's just the other side of ridiculous at over 6,000. The tolerances on these engines is crazy and has to be to control the detonation occurring in each engine cylinder. Think about this, each cylinder of an 8-cylinder hemi race engine puts out more horsepower than the average car does in total. A nitro-methane top fuel engine drinks over a gallon of fuel per second at full throttle. That's more than a fire hose in your office building puts out at between 50-60 gallons per minute. If you're not detailed, if you don't torque everything correctly, if you miss the sequence in tightening things up, somethings going to blow up, a rod may push out the side and spray oil on the track, and then someone is going to get hurt.

Everyone has a job:

John Force, one of the legends in Funny Car, has a team that can rebuild their engine and get the car prepped and ready to go in the NHRA window of 75 minutes. Here's a video of an 11 minute engine rebuild https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a23115209/top-fuel-dragster-v8-engine-rebuild/ In order to do this, the team is divided into roles so that no one crosses over and no one misses anything. You have one working on the left cylinders, one on the right, one on the top (Supercharger) and one on the bottom and clutch, and so on. Everyone knows their job. It's almost like a choreographed dance with the tools and equipment all placed in specific locations to be readily accessed by everyone as they need it. With this choreography, you can rebuild an engine and turnaround the car from the end of one run to the start of another faster than most dealers can do an oil change. Each person is trained on what they have to do but knows the other person's role in case they need help.

Trust:

Our owner/driver Mike trusted each and every one of the team to make sure we did things right because it was his life that was on the line. An example of this trust was the safety systems which I was responsible for which included Fire Suppression and the parachutes. Most drivers pack their own chutes. The reason for this was for some to make sure that they felt it was packed properly, but the other "unsaid" reason was guilt. Guilt that if a person packed his driver's chute and it failed, that person wouldn't feel the guilt should that driver get hurt or even killed. Mike and I had a good relationship and he trusted me to pack the chutes and check them at the line after the burnout to warm the tires. In the years we were together, we never had a chute failure and even had a crash where the chutes deployed automatically as they were designed. It's a lot to trust someone with something that is the main thing from stopping your car from running off the end of the track. 

Work Hard, Play Hard:

There were many weekends, after driving many hours, spending even more time setting up, that we worked way into and sometime overnight, to repair and rebuilding the car after qualifying runs. Nobody complained. But when we had time, we played and we played hard. There were many jokes played on each other, and there was a lot of fun between teams. I'd never know the joys of "Deep Fried Turkey" if it wasn't for the boys from South Carolina, or the burning sweetness of Georgia Peaches Preserved in Georgia Moonshine. But the playing stopped when the morning came and the racing began. 

Life is nothing but an education. You learn a lot about yourself and lot about others. You need to take these lessons and think about how to utilize them with your family, your friends, and your employees/employer. You need to know how to be there for someone and that someone will be there for you. You need to be attentive to everything going on, especially at work where a mistake may cost your company a lot in dollars, time, or reputation. You need to know your job and how everyone else impacts or supports yours. You need to build trust and relationships all over, between employees, departments, contractors, third parties, you name it. Finally, you need to learn that it doesn't always have to be work, work, work. Take the time to play. Take the time to let your employees play, to have fun, to enjoy their work and team-build. 

I wish everyone had the opportunity to work on a race team. There's so much to learn and a lot I haven't said here. There are the scary moments, like when your car makes a 90 degree turn into a wall at over 100 mph. You quickly learn what you're made of when that happens and you learn to thank your lucky stars and the safety equipment built into each and every car when you see your driver step out of the mangled mess. But those moments are rare. 

If you take something you've done in the past not even closely related to your current job, think about what you learned from it. Think about what you can leverage from it. If you do, I'm positive you will be a better manager, person, or family member for it.