MJ2 Racing Team - Working It Out

There were a few rough edges other than on the car.

It took longer than it should have to set up the scales and swap the rearend gear, he said. But that will improve with more practice.

What he was most embarrassed about is how long it took to swap a right A-arm. And he freely took the blame.

"I made a mess of that one," he says. "Jeff and I know how to do that and we did everything wrong. It took us way too much time and we made the job much more complicated than it should have been just because we didn't follow the proper procedure.

"We know better."

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal- a commitment to excellence-that will enable you to attain success." -Mario Andretti

"At a session like this, we test more than the car," Carruthers says on the way home. "It's the people who make this happen. I've seen teams show up with absolute state of the art equipment, all the greatest gear money can buy, and the best prepared cars at the track, but they aren't successful because the people on the team don't work as a team."

Carruthers knows MJ2 is a bit behind other teams in the series that raced this type of car last year and are more familiar with how they work.

"But I've been around a long time and I've got friends who are great about giving me help when I need it," he says. "It's not like we are beginning at square one."

The Arizona session was the first in a marathon schedule that will see the team hit tracks in California, Phoenix, and Washington before its first race.

"We've got a lot of laps to turn yet," says Jim Warn. "It works well for us because Jeff and I both like a loose car, so we are comfortable in the same setup.

"Right now we are making some pretty substantial gains, but the closer we are to getting it right, the smaller the gains will be and the harder it will be to get them. Big gains keep everyone enthused; small gains keep everyone working hard."

"I'm anxious to get on the track with other cars," he adds. "Right now I'm pretty pleased with the way it drives, but until I follow another car through a corner, I have no idea how it is going to race."

And there's only one way to find that out: Race it.

As told to Jerry F. Boone

Divide the work into specific tasks and areas and make people responsible for them. If you have two guys who always do the gear changes, they'll recognize when something doesn't look the same as it did the last time they were under there. If you keep rotating people in jobs, it is too easy for the new person to miss something.

The beauty of preseason testing is you can afford to take your time and learn things. Praise people when they do a good job and learn something quickly, and give them help when they are having a hard time. No one likes to struggle.

Because everyone wears a radio, everyone knows what is happening on the track and why something is being changed. It eliminates questions and confusion.

Be open to suggestions. It's a crew, not a committee, but if someone has an idea how to do something better, he or she should feel free to offer it.

Every job is worth doing well, and no one is above doing any of them. It isn't unusual to see team owner Mike Warn shag parts or Cindy, his wife, grab the broom to sweep the pit area if everyone else is busy.