The enduro from a crew member's perspective...
Some observations. Since nobody had done this before, we were pretty much flying by the seat of our pants, so here are some observations from MY perspective.
- Get GOOD radios and test them before the race. We had lots of communication problems during the race. Part of which I think could be attributed to the equipment. For crew members with radtios, spend the bucks and but a setup with ear muffs. The basic setup with an earbud or a 1-speaker headphone/mic sedtup ain't going to cut it in a noisy enviornment. The same goes for the driver -- get a pair of speakers and a good mic and integrate that into a helmet -- permanently. Makes for easier driver changes, too. Use a PTT buton and NOT VOX! the car is too noisy for VOX to work correctly.
- If you stil have problems understanding the driver, think about using a throat mic. They were invented for enviornments just like the interior of a race car (actually, they were invented for military pilots.)
- Practice good radio discipline. It's not just for WW2 movies. Radio discipline makes it easier for you to be understood in a noisy and confusing enviornment.
- Have a back-up means of driver communication, both from the pits to the driver and vice-versa. Get a BIG pit board -- as large as possible.
- For pit boards, write on it in BIG, CLEAR letters. Keep it simple: "PIT" - pit ASAP; "Pn" - you'r in nth place in your class; "+" - drive faster; "-" - slow down. Include your car's number and class, if necessary. Put the car's number INSIDE the car, of you have a driver who's new to the car and might not remember the number.
- If the driver can't communicate with you, he needs a clear way to indicate the most important thing -- that he's coming in for an unscheduled stop. Sticking his hand out the window may not be easy to see, especially at a track like TWS where the pits are a good distance from the racing surface. If the car has headlights, flashing them would work. Driving on a different part of the track might also work (i.e. if the driver normally heads down the front straight on the right-hand part of the track, he could drive down on the left-hand side -- just make sure he knows where the timing loop is so he still hits it -- on some tracks the loop may not extend all the way across the track surface.
- Stay calm. The only mistakes we made in the pits was due to simply trying to hurry things along. We had a minor fuel spill (no penalty,) and lost a hood pin somewhere on the track, after I pulled the hood to check the ignition wires.
- Assign job roles and responsibilities. Everyone needs to know what their responsibilities are under every situation.
- No one is at fault. Figuring out who's fault it is when a problem crops up is counter-productive and doesn't get the job done. If you MUST finger-point, do it after the race. This leads to...
- You need a recognized crew chief. His word is law -- right or wrong. A pit crew is not a committee and isn't run like one. When there's a conflict, the crew chief's decision is law. This needs to be made painfully cleear before the race.
- Know the rules. Have a copy of the rules and any addendums/corrections with you in the pits. Officials don't always know the rules, so having them handy can help out when the crew chief needs to "clarify" a few things.
- Know that the safety stewards can trump the rules. Get to know your safety crew, and treat 'em right. Karma rules!
- Review all procedures before the race -- write 'em down and get 'em to the crew members a few weeks before the race and go over those before the race.
- Make a list of stuff you need in the pits and refer to that when setting up and tearing down your pit stall.
- Pack in more water and ice than you think you'll need -- twice as much, if not more. (The ice is more for the driver's coolsuit.)
- Every crew member needs a chair. If he doesn't have one, he'll sit on a piece of equipment, which may not be good for him or the equipment.
- Bring a canopy.
- If you can manage it, bring a electric fan for the driver, especially on a hot/humid day.
- At the end of the race, have a runner ready to take two large bottles of water (or more,) to the driver, since he'll be stuck in his car, waiting in line for tech inspection.
