You'll enjoy this post better if you read yesterday's post "You Never Know Until You Try" first.
As a teenager dad flew an airplane. As a teenager I raced a stock car. In one of my first races, the car popped out of gear in turn three. Let me tell you that situation gets your attention real fast.
The track where I normally raced was very high-banked. You normally had the gas pedal to the floor on the straightaways, held it as long as you could, then slipped your foot off the gas pedal (back off) and cut the steering wheel hard as you entered the turn. Halfway through the turn and completely off the throttle, you did a tap on the brakes (spot brake) and then slammed the gas pedal to the floor to come off the turn.
That works very well assuming of course that the car is in gear. If not, the engine races to red line RPMs (and its hard to hear that above the noise as none of our race cars had mufflers), and the drivers behind you are already banging into you and pushing you. While the shift lever looked like it was in normal position, I gave it a quick slap, it moved slightly and I was back in gear. Soon I was driving that turn with back off, spot break, slap the gearshift, mash the gas. Not a particularly good way to go, but we did qualify for the feature (final) race.
Most short tracks (ours was 1/4 mile) do not have pit stops, so there is no pit area visible to the spectators. Unlike what you see on television at the larger tracks where the pits are parallel to the pit road, our pits were located behind the track and parking was perpendicular to pit road. As you came in to the pit you could nose in or back in. Normally I would back into our pit. This time, excited from being bumped around and having to slam the shift lever every lap, I nosed into the pit and advised the crew.
With little time until the feature race, the crew decided to wire the gearshift tightly in position to see if that might hold it in gear. What did we have to lose? We only ran in second gear anyway and if it didn't work I could always slap it back into gear as I did in the heat race. So wire it up they did, with no time, effort, or amount of wire spared. Rube Goldberg would have been proud.
Imagine our chagrin when they called the race cars for the feature race and thirty three cars fired up and headed out to the track. I climbed in, fastened the belts, fired the engine and went to shift into reverse so I could back out of my pit (remember I had nosed in). There was the shift lever solidly wired into second gear. While some crew members searched frantically for wire cutters, others simply pushed the car back out of the pit stall. And interestingly enough, the car stayed in gear through the entire feature race.
When it comes to problem solving "Ya never know until ya try."
About Pelleyblog. This blog covers topics of interest to managers, particularly those at the first-line supervisor level. Topics include handling difficult employees, leadership, counseling, coaching, problem solving, lean thinking, motivation and time management. We welcome your comments on this post.
As a teenager dad flew an airplane. As a teenager I raced a stock car. In one of my first races, the car popped out of gear in turn three. Let me tell you that situation gets your attention real fast.
The track where I normally raced was very high-banked. You normally had the gas pedal to the floor on the straightaways, held it as long as you could, then slipped your foot off the gas pedal (back off) and cut the steering wheel hard as you entered the turn. Halfway through the turn and completely off the throttle, you did a tap on the brakes (spot brake) and then slammed the gas pedal to the floor to come off the turn.
That works very well assuming of course that the car is in gear. If not, the engine races to red line RPMs (and its hard to hear that above the noise as none of our race cars had mufflers), and the drivers behind you are already banging into you and pushing you. While the shift lever looked like it was in normal position, I gave it a quick slap, it moved slightly and I was back in gear. Soon I was driving that turn with back off, spot break, slap the gearshift, mash the gas. Not a particularly good way to go, but we did qualify for the feature (final) race.
Most short tracks (ours was 1/4 mile) do not have pit stops, so there is no pit area visible to the spectators. Unlike what you see on television at the larger tracks where the pits are parallel to the pit road, our pits were located behind the track and parking was perpendicular to pit road. As you came in to the pit you could nose in or back in. Normally I would back into our pit. This time, excited from being bumped around and having to slam the shift lever every lap, I nosed into the pit and advised the crew.
With little time until the feature race, the crew decided to wire the gearshift tightly in position to see if that might hold it in gear. What did we have to lose? We only ran in second gear anyway and if it didn't work I could always slap it back into gear as I did in the heat race. So wire it up they did, with no time, effort, or amount of wire spared. Rube Goldberg would have been proud.
Imagine our chagrin when they called the race cars for the feature race and thirty three cars fired up and headed out to the track. I climbed in, fastened the belts, fired the engine and went to shift into reverse so I could back out of my pit (remember I had nosed in). There was the shift lever solidly wired into second gear. While some crew members searched frantically for wire cutters, others simply pushed the car back out of the pit stall. And interestingly enough, the car stayed in gear through the entire feature race.
When it comes to problem solving "Ya never know until ya try."
About Pelleyblog. This blog covers topics of interest to managers, particularly those at the first-line supervisor level. Topics include handling difficult employees, leadership, counseling, coaching, problem solving, lean thinking, motivation and time management. We welcome your comments on this post.
Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
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