Written by Motorsport Tutor, Ed Sarling
Buckle up this 6 point harnesses, because this isn’t a short one.
I had a few things I was going to talk about in this blog, but recent events took me down a different path. Now, I want to start by reiterating that these blogs are solely my opinions, and I say this because I’m pretty sure I’m going to get a few peoples pants in a twist over it, but if you are one of those people then the irony is this is aimed at you more than anyone else.
So, I was hoping to be discussing the last test event, how well it all went, and when the next one was going to be (which would have been three days as I write this), but due to an incident this is now not the case.
I say incident because that’s just what it was, the car left the track and hit a barrier and now we have more rebuild work to do (I sometimes feel like the Mosler is trying to tell us it just wants to retire)!
Working as part of a pit crew in motorsport is a bizarre experience compared to a lot of other jobs; I often say you will not find the swing from such highs, to such lows in such a quick moment elsewhere, in part because you have so much invested in it. Late nights which can roll straight through into early mornings without a break; a diet of biscuits, coffee, and red bull; cuts, burns, and bruisers that came from sometime the other day while doing something over there fixing that part on the back of one car or another.
The common expression I’ve always known for a day-night-day shift is a Ghoster; mainly because everyone looks like that by the end of the next day. There have even been a couple of times when I’ve pushed through a second night, me and a mate coined this a poltergeist, and I can assure you that you really start to not understand reality at all by that point.
So, hopefully by now you are not put off getting into motorsport because trust me, when those highs come, much like I guess with childbirth, all the pain and stress are forgotten in an instant.
The teammates you share these experiences can become more than colleagues; you become a strong family which looks out for each other, and while families may sometimes have differing opinions, in times of need they should all pull together.
I’ve had the privilege of working in, and observing some fantastic teams which understand how to work together, they know how important mutual respect is, and if one person makes a mistake then it is not dwelled on, it is a lesson learned on how to improve, and then put in place failsafe’s for the future so it doesn’t happen again.
This might be an apprentice spilling £4 a litre 102 octane, a number 2 dropping the wheel nut, a crew chief mistiming a pit release, an engineer miscalculating fuel, or a driver pushing too hard.
The point is, things happen. Take responsibility. Deal with it, move on.
It’s not always the Brady Bunch though, sometimes it’s all a bit too Jerry Springer!
I’ve experienced this myself – having someone literally shout in my face that I’d done something wrong, even though a dozen people confirmed I hadn’t. Despite being sure I hadn’t messed up, I still checked with others because I try to keep my ego in check and not assume I’m right just because I think I am
Now, to me, this was no big deal. Working on the doors years ago I had things said to me that would be hard going to be topped, so I have a very thick skin to sticks and stones, and can stay calm and unphased by these situations. But there are so many people that would be starting out and learning that just are not equipped to deal with this sort of behavior.
I’ve even walked away from a team because the ego can get so big on some people that they think it’s a dictatorship (yes, that was the actual word used) and they are high ruler and all knowing. How is anyone that is new to the industry meant to see it as a long-term career if they don’t feel happy in where they are, who they are with, and what they are doing. As I said before, this is a tough job, and it has to have the highs to balance the lows.
I often hear people saying to our students “you should be learning on the job, what does a bit of paper prove. It’s useless”, and I think this is a real shame because they can feel dejected and start to question it themselves sometimes.
“I’d always choose someone with experience over a bit of paper” I hear a lot. My simple reply is ‘Ok, and what if someone came to you with the experience AND the bit of paper? Still going for just the experience’?
You see, I look at the big picture, and let’s be honest; they are both equally valuable in their own unique ways; I always say the practical teaches you how, and the classroom teaches you why.
This is of course a blurred spectrum between the two, but it gives an idea of their places in education. Yes, both education. Because the real irony to all this is that those people that are putting down the educational system don’t think about the people they have working for them; the neighbors kid they took racing and trained from leaving school, or the offspring who’s been coming along since they could crawl.
Even more ironically, these people themselves were once taught by someone, whoever that might have been, and whatever walk of life they were from, they were an educator.
It could be brought full circle here and questioned ‘well then why do you need to be qualified to be an educator’? Let’s just think of that in real terms, would you trust a school teacher to educate your child more than Dave down the street? Yes, of course you would, because they have earned that bit of paper that proves they have been deemed competent and knowledgeable enough to do their job properly.
I’ve always prided myself on not having an ego and tried to keep myself grounded. I get judged on being an ‘educator’ and having ‘bits of paper’ (what normal people call qualifications).
But the irony that is often missed is that I did my time learning the hard way first, I spent those nights in the garage figuring out what was what on my own, I worked alongside mates in various professions to try to learn from them.
My good mate Nige taught me the beginnings of welding, and helped build my bodywork skills, Lee and I did repairs on our crossers and modified our hot-hatches back in the day (he drives a Tesla now, I feel for him).
It was only in my thirties that I decided to make it official and have a recognised qualification to validate what I knew, and also to teach me just how little I knew.
This decision sent me on a road of learning that I just can’t get off of now, the more I learn, the more I realise how ignorant to knowledge I was. And also, the more I want to share the knowledge and help others reach their goals.
I’m far from perfect and in my twenties I had the same opinion of university graduates, which is why I do get the mentality of where these people are coming from. After my degree I am ashamed to say that I made some negative comments about a person who had never had any training.
The truth was he was very good at what he did and I was way out of line, but my angst against him was misplaced as jealousy that he was on way more money than I was. My real frustration was at the management, but it does prove how a divide can be made in these circumstances.
Still with me?
As seems to be the style with these blogs, I will start to bring this all together like some plot in a TV series that you’ve had to wait 15 seasons to get to the end of, though hopefully less disappointing…
After the car had it’s off, we posted about the incident on our socials as nothing more than an update to why the plan for the year ahead had now been somewhat realigned, and what followed, in my opinion, was just disappointing.
It always amazes me how so many people on the internet love to throw their judgements in when they are in no way in possession of all the facts, and how quickly they can judge and dismiss the hard work of others when in truth they had done nothing wrong. We had to hide a lot of comments, and this should not have been necessary.
We’ve now stripped and assessed the car, we have the data and the on-board Vbox footage, we know exactly what happened, and now we are learning from this and moving forward.
No one should have been ridiculed, and no excuses should have needed to be made.
This is a tough job, in a tough industry, and no matter what route you came in through, we’re all in it because we love motorsport.
We are all still learning, and we can all learn from each other. So, let’s leave the egos at the gate and work as a team.
Written by Ed Sarling
NMA Engineering Tutor & Race Engineer
