I Can’t Drive it For Him

Racing is a team sport.  Maybe more so then the other major professional sports in this country.  One guy’s effort and performance cannot carry an entire race team.  I don’t care how good you might think a driver is, if the equipment isn’t right or pit stops are bad, he won’t win.  But something that I have started to see and realize in my own situation over the last few months is that the opposite is also true.

For the sake of the site, I haven’t revealed a whole lot about my own team thus far with the blog.  But I will say that we have achieved a fair amount of success this year.  We have certainly had some very good weekends, but with that we’ve had some bad ones.  And as far as the team goes, I can’t honestly say we’ve made a lot of mistakes.  The equipment is always good and our pit stops have been on point with maybe only a couple exceptions.  Our driver has also been good, but just like us, drivers aren’t perfect.

Once the green flag drops each week, I have one job: changing tires.  I can’t carry tires, jack, crew chief, or drive.  Once the car leaves the pit stall, I become a spectator just like those in the stands.  From then on its up to the steering wheel holder to do his part.  If he doesn’t, its on him.

I certainly don’t want this to sound like I’m bashing my driver or any other driver for that matter, but when things don’t go right on the track, I’m not going to get overly upset.   It doesn’t matter whether the driver made a wrong move or put one in the fence.  I think the point I’m trying to make here, is that while I am very competitive and want to win just as much as the next guy, I’m not going to get mad or rant and rave about how our driver did.    If I did my job to the best of my abilities and did everything I could to put our driver in position to win, I’m going to be content with the race.

Throughout my career I have seen guys on my own team and guys on other teams let their emotions get the better of them during and after races.  My own thought is “what’s the point?”  You can’t climb in the window and help your driver on the track, so what is the use of wasting a whole bunch of energy getting mad about it.  If the bad performances become a habit, eventually that driver will have to answer to management and owners anyway.

I think another reason to not get so upset is the effect on the team.  Losing your composure and possibly taking it out on a teammate is not good for team chemistry.  And I think we all know how important chemistry is.

Going forward, I am going to do my best to focus on the elements of the race that I am apart of and can affect.  Making myself the best possible tire changer is really all I can do.  Besides, I’m in racing because its fun and I really enjoy it.  Getting mad and upset just takes all the fun out of it.

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