I’ve been fortunate enough in my career to get myself behind the wheel of race cars competing in a few pro series before—Mustang Challenge, MX-5 Cup, Viper Cup—but this weekend I took on my most high-profile behind-the-wheel stint to date in the Pirelli World Challenge series driving our project Fo…
Looking forward to the full article.
Having worked both SCCA, Nasa, and Pro events, That part about it being a show is so true.
The details of the show are down to the minute and everyone has a place. It's an incredible amount of details are put into every step. Nascar is a pro at this. It's very interesting to watch the motions that are put in place to pull it all off.
Zombie thread.
For this one you'll want a subscription and a time machine 
I've crewed in IMSA, SCCA and NASCAR, and I will second everything you said. The amount of preparation before hand, and then the work load at the track (especially NASCAR) is something that most people cannot imagine. You have to have amazing attention to detail and be very organized. Not only does everyone need to know their tasks, but they have to work well together and not be in each other's way. We had lists for everything, and they were taped to the car, tool boxes, you name it. One small missed detail could be the difference between winning or simply finishing the race. You'd be shocked at how easy it is to miss even large items like changing the gear ratios or rebuilding the shocks between sessions.
And then there is the cleaning. We cleaned the car top to bottom, inside and out, between every session. No exception. It's shocking how dirty they can get and when you have sponsors, they expect it. And in our case, when it was Toyota, they have very high expectations. We coordinated crew attire before every event, and had uniforms for the track. But even afterwards at the hotel, we always had proper attire. A certain conduct was also expected.
Run in a pro event has always been a dream of mine, not looking to do a full season, but one event would be cool.
One of my favorite things to do at a Pro race is to walk the paddock and watch the crews work.
I can not wait to read the article. We did the open trailer thing and took it about as far as we could with out having to get "more" professional. We thought it was a big deal when we all got matching team T-shirts. LOL. . .. . This was back in the late 90's early 2000's when there was still a remote chance a no name could show up with a pickup and a helper and get in the big show. Great memories!!!!
In reply to dean1484:
ITS AN OLD THREAD. ITS AN OLD THREAD. ITS AN OLD THREAD.
In reply to bravenrace:
Hey buddy! Its someone commenting on the ARTICLE, just as intended when GRM redesigned the site on the last go around, so when a comment is added it is posted to the message board. Just like when a new article is posted. This was to help generate traffic and discussion outside of the message board because so many visit the boards and not the rest of the site.
So this is working as intended and quite frankly it is an interesting subject to talk about, so maybe contribute to the discussion please?
As for the original discussion, I was able to volunteer as a "pit reporter" for Radio Le Mans when they came to Portland. It was impressive being that close to the action and especially the professional track crews. You could definitely see the professionalism, organization and work ethic in action. The amount of effort put forth was brief with periods of waiting and monitoring with only the tire gofers mostly staying busy, unless a repair was needed or a pit stop was getting close, then things got a bit more busy with tool prep, etc.
In reply to turboswede:
He said he cannot wait to read the article, as in it's coming in the future, and indicating that he missed that it was published a long time ago.
LuxInterior wrote: For this one you'll want a subscription and a time machine
they also sell past issues 
I know it's an old article now but it is a good conversation.
I second the cleaning part that Racerdave said.
Our Trucks at TMS are a rolling Chevy billboard. Not in a bad way just that you knew exactly what they were. Since our position is Pit out there, There is a lot of foot traffic with the people walking from the pits to the grandstands and back before the race. That truck is spotless after every session and it's parked in a way that It's a Chevy Ad as the fans walk by. We would spend at least 20-30 minutes a day cleaning it so that it shined under the lights and the folks at Chevy are happy.
The other observation is watching the F1 guys work at COTA. You would go into the pits after the fans leave and those garages are spotless. It would look like you can set your dinner down on the floor and just eat it off that surface. No oil spilled, no grease stains, jsut perfectly clean. The Mercedes garages looked more like operating rooms vs car workshops.
I think the first thing I would learn is that I'm not as fast as I think I am!
Article from 2015 but re-released in 2024 as a GRM+ article. Talk about click bait.
Driving4fun said:Article from 2015 but re-released in 2024 as a GRM+ article. Talk about click bait.
Yep we do it every Thursday. It's a thing.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
I enjoyed the article regardless of it's being several years old. I ran several professional series, with slightly different observations.
Yes things are done to a high standard, but I'd put the focus more on the mechanical and preparation side then the cosmetic.
Yes you have to make the car look good, but my first observation on ' going pro' was all the work that was being done by the Crews between sessions.
I was used to prepping the car beforehand and having it in pretty good shape to run at local events without a lot of work at the track.
But after an ont-track session I'd look around and these guys would be working feverishly even up to going back to the grid for session 2. Understanding the need to work straight through the day everyday was important in becoming competitive.
I disagree slightly about the driver working on the car. Unless you have the luxury of a huge crew. It's all hands on deck because you have to work like crazy to be competitive, see my note above. If you might burn your hands do a mundane job like gopher tools & parts, just don't trip going in & out of the trailer 😳
Can you be competitive with barebones equipment? I still believe you can because it all comes down to the race car and the driver. Of course, most organizations won't even allow you to come with an open trailer anymore, but that doesn't mean a winner couldn't roll off & win without a tractor trailer.
Thanks for a fun article!
You'll need to log in to post.
