crew/team...

[dfhotlm33c]

This is just a curiosity question...kind of a poll if you will..

how many people are on your crew/team? For instance, how many come to your shop/garage during the week and help maintain/adjust? Also, how many people come to the track with you and help wrench?

Finally, on average, how many days/hours are you spending in the shop each week prepping?

I will start..it's pretty easy:

It's me and my Dad in the shop

Me and my Dad and occasionally my uncle, and once in a while my son at the track, but most wrenching is done by me and Dad..

Spend about a half day (3-4 hours) cleaning and grinding tires, then a full day (8 hours) maintaining/adjusting, then another half day (3-4) checking all equipment and loading. This is on a normal week where nothing has broken or been smashed...and this is to run one night..this weekend we are going to do our first two night run..Wayne County speedway Friday, and Eriez Sunday!

[mignum]

I do the wrenching through the week by myself my buddy drives a truck so until friday evening if anythiing is done its me doing it or i dont race on friday night. At the track my buddy usually is able to make it or his son if not i have been by myself before, but when i have a helper he really doesnt pay attention to anything that needs to be done like tire temps,ETC... he is usually so busy watching other classes he cant focus on our ride. But glad to have a hand when i can get one.

[perfconn]

Mignum,
Saw where you ran pretty good at Crossville last week.

[Chico]

when I race Me and oldest daughter wrench my son in law and youngest daughter do the rest when we race
spend 10 12 hrs a week working on the car if we're racing that week and 4 or 5 sat when we clean it go over the tires

[mignum]

Mignum,
Saw where you ran pretty good at Crossville last week.
We were tickled to death to run where we did first time up there, i have so much to learn about my setup right now, we are lucky that there are drivers out there that dont care to help get you going in the right direction.

[latemodel86]

Whenever I use to race a good bit 2 and 3 yr ago, it was me and my dad. We'd have people there help us out on what to do to the car, but it was pretty much just me and him. Sometimes we'd take the late model over to someones house to get it scaled and they helped. Then after Aug. 2010 we moved and had nothing to work out of except a 20x20 shed and a utility room beside the carport. Pretty much after that I started working on it all by myself. Quite an experience to go from having your dad do most everything on it for you in the basement, to working on it with almost no help in the driveway when it's either 95 or 45 outside. With me being the age I am, it's hard to do this by myself and especially with what little I know. That's pretty much why I hardly ever get to race now and with my dad having lost all interest in it. This whole thing has taught me how lucky I was at the time, even though I knew I was lucky and was thankful for what I had going for me, but I took it for granted. It has also make me realize how lucky you see kids my age who are Richy Rich and have a team helping them out with their racing career and are fortunate enough to race 30+ times a year. Point is, no matter how much you know or how much money you have, racecars are a multi-person job and almost a full time job.

[dualdj1]

Owner/Driver does all the maint during the week, with his daughter helping. Anything major mechanical crew chief will do/help with. On the weekends we typically have 3 crew guys at the track, 1 on tires/fuel, 1 on suspension, and crew chief. Crew chief is in town, other 2 out of town. If I get to town early on race day, help prep and load to go to the track, otherwise do checks at the track. usually get there right when gates open, so plenty of time to prepare and check things on race day.

[TWISTER]

For our team it is pretty much me doing it ALL!!! My driver lives out of town and can occasionally make it one night a week, but that is on occasion. I have one guy who comes to the shop alomost every night when i am there and helps and does what he can but he is new to it and does all the little stuff for me. I spend an average of 40 hours a week in the shop and that is after working a 50 hour a week job. I get off work at 5 and am in the shop most nights by 5:30 until about 11 M-F and then 4 or 5 hours on Saturday before races and then all day on Sunday. I have 2 other guys who live out of town as well, that meet me at the track on Saturdays to help. My Dad comes down and help out too but he isnt into it like he used to be and says that this is his last year of it. We spend all day on Sunday washing the car, tires, and cleaning out the trailer and mopping it out and just generally restocking supplies for the next week. Once that is complete then we start the process of documenting all notes and bar locations and the general events and changes made on the night before. We also weigh the car out as it came of the track and document that info as well. The rest of the week all the other stuff required to have a successful race team is done, scaling,scaling and more scaling of the car, tire mounting and sizing,car maintenance,etc.
I spend more hours in the shop in most weeks than a lot of people do on their regular jobs, but that is probably why our team has been so successful. We have 7 track Championships since 2007 and approximatley 60 feature wins. There is nothing like the comfort of being well prepared and the results show as well.

[joedoozer]

What's a "crew"? I do all the work, fabricating, driving, maintenance, cleaning, prep work at the shop. My wife goes to the track to help load and unload, and help me getting in and out of the car, and some occasional mud scraping. But that's it. No crew in the shop and no crew at the track. Just me.

[dualdj1]

What's a "crew"? I do all the work, fabricating, driving, maintenance, cleaning, prep work at the shop. My wife goes to the track to help load and unload, and help me getting in and out of the car, and some occasional mud scraping. But that's it. No crew in the shop and no crew at the track. Just me.

Crew's them younguns you're workin on :P

[dfhotlm33c]

Good stuff... keep it coming!! Nice to know I'm not the only one out there with a small team!

Twister..are you married? I think my wife would have my head if I spent that much time with the race car! I have worked her up to the level I'm at now and it seems to work well! Thankfully, we are both math teachers, so summers are nice! and, I so need a good set of digital scales...we use these old school analog, cup style scales that are like 8" tall...takes forever to get the car up on them correctly...and they use ATF as the fluid..so temperature changes cause issues with accuracy...always having to calibrate them...so needless to say, weight relocation doesn't happen often..and we spent a few days playing with everything so we knew what changes did what to wedge, bite and balance..

[joedoozer]

Crew's them younguns you're workin on :P

Haha I wish. Triplets puts a stop to it all.

[dualdj1]

Haha I wish. Triplets puts a stop to it all.

Hiatus, not stop. Just have to get em big enough to carry tires around :D

[dualdj1]

Yeah DF definitely look at getting a good set of scales. Even if you're not changing things much, you still could have something move, bend, etc etc, and not know it until you scale and it's off. It's one of those good checks to make sure everything is where it's supposed to be. We scaled night before engine went out, only ran hot laps, qual, and heat. After putting it back together, has 30lbs extra LR, for no apparent reason. Good thing to check at least every few weeks.

[AmickRacing]

I don't know the amount of labor spent working on the car, and likely that's a good thing.

It's just Dad and I working on my car. He typically takes care of the weekly checks (fluids, tight, etc), I do setup, motor, tires and try to make the right calls at the track. Generally speaking I wash the car on saturday morning (we race fridays), do a few hours of work after that, make sure there's no parts that need to be ordered. Sunday if we're not busy a few more hours, then during the week I'd say 2-3 evenings are spent on the car.

I'm mighty thankful for his help, even though we tend to butt heads a lot, I couldn't do it all myself. I get tossed out of town for work quite a bit, so I'm gone at least 1-2 weeks a month.

I do miss the good ole days. When I was younger, we'd spend most evenings out working on the car along with a couple other guys. Fridays we usually had at least 5 guys in the pits helping, if not more. Never seemed like nearly as much work with all that help.

I'm not sure if it's like this at many other tracks, but it seems like as you move up in the class's, there are fewer and fewer pit crew. The street stocks seem to have 3-5 guys helping, b-mods and supers is at least a couple up to 5. Once you get into the LM and sprints though, it seems like there's only 1-2 guys at most other than the driver. Around here there's a couple guys who do 100% of it solo also.

[billetbirdcage]

You really have 2 choices: either you have money and can afford to hire help or if on a budget, you have to rely on yourself or voluntary part time crew.

Now the part the most don't want to here: how much this applies to what level your trying to race at (local, regional, or national)

Couple things to consider

1. if your up running up front each week, you're putting less laps on your equipment (not having to run B's) and you likely not tearing up stuff from running back in the pack where things happen (your fault or not).

2. Running up front obviously brings in more money (could say less of a loss), this allows more money to be put back into the car and engine. This means you likely have fresher parts on the car and less chance of failure. If you have old parts on the car, you need to spend more time going over things and check what is useable for a couple more races and what needs replaced now as it isn't going to run much longer.

3. Moral is better and everyone gets along better and tempers aren't short like they will be when your not running good.

Short story: You actually need to spend more time in the shop then the guy running up front every week just to get the car ready. Granted the guy's up front are still likely to spend more time in the shop then you anyways, but even if he doesn't he's working on other things besides just maintenance making his car better.

It's tough if your on a budget, if your married or have kids your really behind the 8 ball so to speak. It really takes at least 40 years a week to run and maintain a top team at a lower regional level, which isn't possible for a lot of people. Money for sure helps, no way around that but I see so many people get out worked in the shop and want to put the blame on money.

It really boils down to "HOW BAD DO YOU WANT TO WIN?".

Are you watching TV instead of being in the shop?
Are you drinking beer or socializing while working on the car or even working on the car?
Are you thinking about what the car needs or set-up stuff while your taking a shower?
Are you out chasing ladies?
Do you work on the car on Sunday after the races?
Do you have spare parts assembled and ready to go in case of a wreck (points racing)?
Do you have a spare body/nose assembly made in the off season or when you have time?
Do you need to hire someone to come in to look over your program and see where the problem is instead of going to that race that to far away but you just want to go?
etc, etc, etc.

There's very few people that will do this and those are generally the ones that are successful. I do understand that not everyone can commit this much time, but remember someone that your racing against might be.

Again you should ask yourself how committed am I and how bad do I want to win and am I doing everything I can to make this happen (doesn't have to be about money).

Just my 1 1/2 cents

[perfconn]

Back 10 or 12 years ago when I first started helping Bizkit,I told him that there was a lot of people in racing that could out spend him but there was no reason to let them out work him.

[talclipse]

Hey Terry; I tried sending you a private message; but, I need to get in touch with you and pick your brain. What's the best way to get a hold of you?

[perfconn]

Shoot me an email at: terry.marciaburnett@gmail.com

[TWISTER]

[QUOTE=dfhotlm33c;1560375]Good stuff... keep it coming!! Nice to know I'm not the only one out there with a small team!

Twister..are you married? I think my wife would have my head if I spent that much time with the race car!


No but i might as well be.....been with her for 13 years, so i guess really, yeah i am. LOL!!! Ok here goes the kicker.......i honestly think she loves racing more than i do!!! If we get rained out at our local track she wants to know what other track are we going to that night to watch or race. Not to mention the fact that she and her sister, thats right, her SISTER, used to own and operate a go kart track!!! Where most women want to shop, she wants to race!!!! She had a choice to go get a cabin in the mts for vacation or go to the world finals in charlotte......do i need to say what she chose? We will be in section 408 just outside of turn 4 in November!!! Good luck to ya!!

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

No but i might as well be.....been with her for 13 years, so i guess really, yeah i am. LOL!!! Ok here goes the kicker.......i honestly think she loves racing more than i do!!! If we get rained out at our local track she wants to know what other track are we going to that night to watch or race. Not to mention the fact that she and her sister, thats right, her SISTER, used to own and operate a go kart track!!! Where most women want to shop, she wants to race!!!! She had a choice to go get a cabin in the mts for vacation or go to the world finals in charlotte......do i need to say what she chose? We will be in section 408 just outside of turn 4 in November!!! Good luck to ya!!

I can't believe you haven't married that gal, Twister!

[TWISTER]

I can't believe you haven't married that gal, Twister!

She feels the same way!!!! LOL!!

[grt74]

lets see sunday wash the cars & tires 4hrs,monday after work look over whole car,look for broken or worn parts and take notes if setup was better or not 4hrs,tues order parts welding ect 2-6hrs,wed a break if were lucky,thursday get new parts put together 4-6hrs,friday tires tires and more tires,scale if needed and check front end 4-6hrs,sat load trailor,coolers,tires,tools,2 cars,ect9-12 go to the local track 4-12or1 am, o chit sundays here again!!! and thats if we dont wreck the car or cars,
as for the crew lets see,me me me me and me again and lets not forget my sons racing now and most of thats me too,man i need a new job so i can take it easy!!!!! of coarse thanks to my famdamily for there help and support,and all the other people (racing family)in the pits,couldnt and wouldnt do it without ya

[Lizardracing]

Nice post Billet.....

I spend about 20hrs/week on my modified to race weekly if I bring it home in one piece. Biweekly if I don't. I have a good welder friend that can come over once in a while. My wife helps by raising our son while I do the shop work. I do almost all the work by myself and would LOVE some help by a trusted individual but I still go to the track alone sometimes and ask for help loading and loading an open trailer by others pitting close to me willing to help. My sister is indispensable, as my family's moral support. I insist my kids have shoes for school rather than trophy's on the mantle and honestly, professionally driving dreams are so few and far between it a pretty poor bet in life to make when you kid grows up dumb because you spent his resources chasing engine power and new tires racing against local idiots who choose to tear up everything every week just like their fathers did spending education money on themselves. I do the best that I can with what I have and take pride in what I can accomplish with shop time and a hobbyist capital. I hate getting beat with money but no one will beat me in resourcefulness and a willingness to do my best with what I do have.

[FlatTire]

During the week its all me(owner/driver/h.n.i.c). I usually spend about 3-4 nights per week preparing the car as long as nothing was tore up bad.
I spend about 3.5hrs on Sunday washing everything and putting it all away.

At the track my girlfriend and my dad help out and occasionally we have someone else.

My dad has worked on racecars for the past 45 years and told me a few years ago he was ready to hang it up. His knees bother him and he worries
that he'll forget to tighten the lug nuts. He still hangs in there, but I know the day is coming when I won't have his help anymore. I got no clue what
I will do then. He's been to almost every single one of my races for the past 20yrs.

I build my own bodies, do my own graphics work, and straighten my own frames when needed.

Racing is too much hard work for most people and few are willing to make the sacrifices it takes to run good. You have got to be dedicated to it or you
are wasting your time & money.

[merc123]

Throughout the week it's mostly me. My girlfriend will occasionally help beat out a body or something but not weekly. If nothing breaks I wash it real good and put it up on Sunday. I start working on throughout the week when I get home from work. I will usually spend anywhere between 5 and 6 hours in the garage fixing things when it gets torn up. If nothing is torn up then usually 3 to 4 hours per night going over a checklist I have.

Sometimes I'll just lay under the car doing nothing for 10 or 20 minutes. I can't tell you how many things I've found bent or cracked by doing this.

During race night it's usually me and my girlfriend's Dad. I have some other teams that help if it's a real bad issue or a flat tire.

It's amazing how much time some of the "menial tasks" like checking rod ends or fluids takes until you do it yourself, by yourself week in and week out. Be greatful if you have a Dad there to help you along!

[9car]

[QUOTE

Sometimes I'll just lay under the car doing nothing for 10 or 20 minutes. I can't tell you how many things I've found bent or cracked by doing this.

[/QUOTE]

especially if your laying on a creeper , i have (of course by accident) done a few eyelid checks during this time also, LOL

[grasshopper]

Me and the driver does most of the work in the shop I work 1st he works 3rd. Yeah we text a lot. But we have a check list sheet we check off and sign. At the track we have 3 more that show up to help. But they only do what we ask them to do. I do most of the wrenching at the track too. We spend over 20 hours a week just in the shop doing maintenance and clean up. Just to race one night a week.

[andy16]

the last full season in a late model i ran was in 010 i made every race and every practice at county line i finished 7th in points. i was the only crew member and i drove it. my mom went to the race on sat night w me in case i got hurt that was it really. spent two hours a night on car and however long friday night and sat sometimes till 3 or 4 in morning. all day on sat. only thing i did on sunday was unload and wash the car real good for the work week.

i was proud of what we got but was too hard for one man wont do it again that way. as the driver its not healthy to know and be thinking about the work involved when taking a risk. i probably let a few passes go because i didn want a tore up car and you cant think that way. or being super pissed because not only do i have to buy new parts but i have to install them too. jmo i was a little over my head by myself

[autoshop]

When I ran my modified in a weekly show I did the wrenching,building the motors in the off season, welding ,chaasis setup,calls at track.

Weekly time spent about 10 hours split into a couple days.

Driver paid weekly bills so if he tore it up it got into his wallet not mine.

Driver drank beer and bullsh*ted with whom ever came by.

One guy did body work only and was extra hand when i needed him.

Two gals on the crew to wash car set up trailer and sat around for us to ogle at (both had big brains if you know what I'm talking about).

One other crew guy to tighten bolts set tire air pressure and drink beer with driver.

During the offseason I tore the car down by myself did all the upgrades or major repairs.

I think it worked out pretty well as we did come close to winning one championship ( missed it by 2 points) one year but the rest we were in the hunt until the last week of the season 7 out of 8 years with the lowest finish 4th.

[Tiregenius12]

its usually 2 of us at the shop and about 5 at the track. we spend most days after 5 working till about 8 and all day sturday 8 until we go to the track