ERNIE Hemingway once said: “Auto racing, bull fighting and mountain climbing are the only real sports … all the others are games.”
Ern was a keen sportsman. He liked dicing with death. In 1928 he pulled on a toilet chain. It wasn’t a toilet chain. It was the skylight. It fell on his head and he had a scar for life.
But Ernie didn’t know motor racing’s dirty little secret. It’s not the speed, the noise, the smells, the roar of the crowds. It’s the pit crews. If you think the service is great at five-star hotels, wait ’til you get serviced by a five-star pit crew. They strap you in snugly, make sure everything works, get you out of the pits, then fix everything when you pull in with a problem. If only we could have a team like this in every other part of our lives.
Good pit crews not only make drivers feel good they help them win races. In the 1957 German GP, Juan Fangio’s crew took 1min 16sec for a pit stop. Last year in Texas, Mark Webber spent less than two seconds in the pits.
Team boss Jonathan Wheatley says to achieve quick stops, “the driver has to stop precisely on the marks with no drama. The gunmen have to get on the (wheel) nut first time, the jack men have to execute a clean lift — very difficult in particular for the rear jack. Basically everyone needs to have a perfect day.’’
Read on here http://www.theaustralian.com.au/executive-living/motoring/pits-perfection-is-revhead-rhapsody/story-fngmee2f-1226983345978
