May 3rd, 2010 
T.C. In any sport, there is no success without chemistry. A team must have it to work cohesively as a unit, towards a common goal. A lack of it can destroy an organization. NASCAR is no different. And one major obstacle in building chemistry within a race team is finding a way to get the two major factions within the team to work as one; the road guys and the race day guys.
The majority of teams are really two teams in one. The “A” team, as its commonly known, consists of the crew chief, mechanics, and engineers who are at the track all weekend and work through practices and qualifying to setup the race car. Once the race starts, they have various duties behind the wall, and some are also pit crew guys. On the other side is the “B” team, or race day only guys. This group comes to the track on race day only, and consists of pit crew and pit support guys.
What you may (or may not) be surprised to know, is that sometimes these two groups don’t get along. It’s usually not quite as bad as UNC fans vs. Duke fans, but it can get ugly.
Picture yourself as the owner of a race team. And within your race team, you have these two groups of people. For a reason you can’t seem to figure out, your team isn’t performing how it should. The cars are good, the driver is top five, and the people are top notch. There is trouble in paradise though. For whatever reason, the A teamers and the B teamers hardly speak to one another. How difficult do you think it is to overcome the fact that the two halves of your team don’t see eye to eye?
While the previous example might just be a hypothetical example in a random blog post, there are teams that have this problem right now. And some don’t even realize it’s a problem.
It’s easy to see why this rift happens though. The two groups spend a great deal of time working with the people within their own group. For example, road guys spend all weekend at the track together. Bonds are going to be made. The really good teams find ways to break down this wall.
I’d love to be able to give you a specific example, but the nature of my position just doesn’t allow it. And unfortunately, this isn’t something that the fans can see on TV or by taking a stroll through the garage area. If your favorite team struggles though, has done so for a while, and seems to have a lot of turnover, maybe they need to look a little harder at the relationship between their own A and B.
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TC,
It’s easy to see how this happens. The “A” team spends two days getting the car set up, and then the “B” team makes a mistake and costs the car positions. That’s racing! Maybe if the “A” team had done a better job, the car wouldn’t have been in pit 22!
A true insider’s perspective. These are the kind of posts that keep me coming back to this site!
A shame you can’t offer specifics as I don’t understand why a tire changer and a crew chief not getting along with one another would have an effect on the race. No offense (really!) but don’t the over the wall guys get their instructions from the crew chief, jump over the wall and they do what they were told to do… or get replaced by those who will? Is there really a back and forth between the catch can man and the engineer? What is there that they need to see eye to eye on? heck, what is there that would even cause the two groups to not get along? One team always gets to the food table first?
And somewhat on a related note, I can imagine the crew and guys at the shop don’t want to hear a driver trashing the car during or after a race, but are you really all that motivated when the driver is interviewed and gives the same canned ‘I’m really proud of the guys who put together the ___ fill in the blank sponsor___ Ford/Chevy/whatever, the car was really good tonight’? Seems to me that an awful lot of the dialogue is forced, whether it is a driver making sure he mentions the sponsor, thanking the crew, whatever. If I’m on the receiving end, I think my reaction hearing that would be ‘yadda yadda yadda’, it’s all insincere white noise, a guy going through the motions. How do you respond, do you get a kick out of hearing that (and even more so if the driver can’t pick you or the other crew out of a lineup?) or are you just happy when the driver doesn’t ream you all out for giving him a crappy car?
Steve: I obviously don’t know what you do for a living, but think about your own workplace. Is there somebody there you don’t get along with? What if you had to work side by side with that person every day? Whether their work actually affects yours or not, you probably aren’t going to look forward to work. And when you aren’t 100% into it, you aren’t going to do your best work.
Often times when their is animosity among these two groups, when something goes wrong, a lot of blame is thrown around. It becomes “oh the car wasn’t setup right” or “that one bad pit stop ruined our day.” If the two are constantly trying to throw each other under the bus, how can you trust those around you? And in our sport, trust is BIG. I’ve got to trust that everyone around me has done their job, because if they didn’t, I probably can’t do mine.
Another way to look at it, is take traditional sports teams for example. In 2008 the Tampa Bay Rays made it to the World Series. They beat both the Red Sox and the Yankees in the East to win their division. That season, the Rays had a payroll of $43 mil, while the Red Sox were at $133 mil and the Yankees were at $209 mil. Those two teams were both drastically more talented then the Rays, yet got beat. How? Chemistry. The Rays played well as a team. While a relief pitcher and a designated hitter may not affect each other’s games on the field, if they don’t get along and create tension in the locker room, bad things will happen. A team will get a lot further together then will a group of individuals.
I can give an example or two based on my time embedded with various race teams. There is definitely an ‘us’ and ‘them’ attitude on some teams between A and B.
For example, an A person referring to a person who is on the A team, but also goes over the wall “He’s one of us until the race starts.”
Sunday-only fans touring pit road will ask the pit crew for autographs. They know what a jackman or catch can guy is because they see them on television. A mechanic, engineer or tire specialist rarely gets asked for autographs. The A team members will note that “look, I’ve been here working 12 hours a day in the garage for three days. They fly in here Sunday morning, set up the pit box, make five pit stops and leave right after the race while I’m still here for another couple of hours closing everything up and loading the car before I get to go home.” None of the TV stations ever put a camera on the tire specialist – always on the pit crew.
Many of the pit crew are former college athletes – they’re used to being important guys and they just have that attitude that the average mechanic doesn’t have. Sometimes the difference in attitudes rubs guys — on both sides — the wrong way.
How does that make a difference in performance? Tire temps are really important in determining how the weight is being carried by the car. Tires cool off quickly, so you want to make the measurements as soon as possible after the tires come off the car. If you’re on pit road, look at how the team deals with tires. Does the pit crew deposit the tires just on their side of the wall and then leave them to be dealt with by the tire specialist? Or do they bring the tires back to the rear of the pit box and set them up on the tire stands? Do you see the pit crew guys rotating the tires so that a line of wear indicators is facing up, making it easy for the tire specialist to get to them?
This is important data for making the car perform better. What you want to see is the whole team working to get the best performance possible. The ‘not my job’ attitude never makes a team better.
My experience is primarily with the A-team folks, so I apologize if my examples are a little biased — that’s just where my experience is.
TC and Journo: How about a column dealing with how the driver interacts with the team and how that affects performance? In my experience, the best drivers know everyone’s name on the A and B teams, ask how their families are, etc. The driver I observed who could refer to his engine tuner only as ‘motor man’ was uniformly resented by the entire crew for his unhidden apathy toward them. A PR rep on an unexpectedly long trip due to rainouts had a driver invite him home to give him a chance to do laundry — that particular driver happened to be a really nice human being. I know being nice doesn’t mean you run well, but I sure have seen crews go way above and beyond the call of duty for a driver they felt loyalty to.
TC-A true “insider’s” perspective and good stuff.
Diandra-Those little details sure make a difference, don’t they? The TV cameras might not show the post pit-stop interaction, or lack thereof, but at the next race I attend, by binoculars will be focused on just that.
The article reminded me of two things. I am an engineer, or should I say “I are an engineer”? My son is considering studying engineering in college. I want him to excel at whatever he does, but cautiously prepare him for little fanfare or appreciation w/o dampening his drive or spirit. Aside from God’s natural wonders, most people take for granted the human engineering behind pretty much everything around them. Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson don’t even make the show w/o an army of smart and dedicated group on, and off, pit row.
While a bit off topic, the title reminded me of a little league “B” baseball team I coached. The “A” team roster was completed before my “B” team even had a single player drafted. I tactfully let my “B” team know they were looked at as second fiddle by the league. While my “B” team was not so successful in most tournaments, our “B” team always smoked the “A” boys and actually knocked them out of the district tourney. Our game was elevated based on that rivalry.
Diandra: Good post. I’m thinking that the personalities of each side of the field are naturally different. Seriously coming close to “jocks” vs. “gearheads”. And I’m sure we all remember that mentality all the way back to high school.
Those are two personalities that are hard to get working together.
T.C., Thanks for giving a plug to my Rays! And by the way, they are getting after it again this year.
Also, some major kudos for the Rays’ recent success should go to their manager, Joe Maddon, who has done a great job in keeping those young guys on the same page.
Being a race team crew chief or a baseball manager has much commonality – assembling the best talent, while building good team chemistry. So if you think about it, if the A and B parts of a race team aren’t getting along, maybe that team’s crew chief might not be doing such a good job in the chemo department.
TC: in any workplace, people blame others when things don’t go right.. the alternative is to accept responsibility and who wants to do that, and especially so in NASCAR where job security is non-existent? So is it really an A-v-B thing as much as the guys who set up the cars looking to blame someone else, anybody else, for why the car isn’t winning, and for the driver to blame someone else and so on?
I think your analogy to baseball fits my argument better than yours. The 3rd baseman doesn’t have to get along with the 1st baseman for both to do their jobs, there’s not that much interaction between the two, is there that much interaction between the A and B teams that hurt feelings can impact the outcome? (If the over the wall guy is supposed to stack the tires and doesn’t, he’s cutting his own throat…. is he going to do that because he doesn’t get along with the tire specialist?
Professionals know to put aside their personal feelings towards their co-workers and focus on getting the job done… they can argue over the credit later Why is it any different in NASCAR?
Steve: When that blame happens though, it is an A vs. B thing. That is where the lines are clearly drawn amongst a team.
And I think you are assuming too much about people. Yeah, it’s easy to say that “professionals” will put aside their feelings, but when it comes right down to it, we are all people. In the heat of competition, those “professionals” often forget to be professional. Under pressure, we all show who we really are. And those cracks in a team will become even more evident.
Also, I think it’s important to point out that with any team that has good chemistry, the sum is greater then the parts. The team, working together as a unit, can accomplish a lot more then a group of individuals.
I accept your argument on a theoretical basis, it all makes sense on that level and all the management books and experts say the same thing. But over my not-so-short career, I’ve had great success with people I couldn’t really stand and failures with people I worked great with. To me, chemistry is less important than a structure that makes sure everybody knows who is supposed to do what.. and having the people with enough talent to do the job they’re tasked with.
Perhaps if you invited me to hang out with you during a race, I could see examples of where personality conflicts cost a team… and vice versa. I’ll be at the Dover race in a couple of week, sitting off Turn 4, just look for me and wave me down, you can’t miss me, I’ll be wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
Really, really super article – why I come here at least twice every week. I find it quite telling that once again you’ve trumped the so-called pros. Thank you.
Steve: Come on down! Now that I know what you’ll be wearing, I know what to look for. I’ll be easy to spot as well, just look for the guy with a helmet, knee pads, and an impact…
And sporting a cape!
I’m thinking about reading a little Jr or Rousch into this story.