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Driving a Race Car as a Senior Citizen

September 27, 2023 by stevebeeler

Driving a race car as a senior citizen is not so much about winning races but more about battling Father Time. How to turn back the clock? Vision, fitness, hydration, nutrition, driving style, and car set up.

Vision

Corrected, my vision was fine on an eye chart but motorsports demand much more than reading small letters. What I did not know was that cataracts had affected my depth perception and ability to track objects. Functionally, my racing vision was mediocre and getting worse. Year over year, I was struggling to match my lap times.

During a routine eye exam, I flunked the glare test. Cataracts! Lens replacement surgery noticeably improved my functional racing vision. Things like brake marker boards are no longer fuzzy and moving around.

Fitness

I have always trained for racing through weight training and running. People who have known me for years will remember the squeeze balls that I squished during meetings. I am still squeezing one. 🙂

Still, I gradually wore out during a race weekend. On Friday, I would feel strong. On Saturday, not quite a strong but still OK. By Sunday, my tank was empty…and my lap times showed it. I had lost endurance.

I have changed how I train. To allow my older body to recover, I now train a bit harder a bit less frequently. Back in the day, I could lift one day and run the next. No longer. Now I rest two days between strenuous workouts. With this additional recovery, I am maintaining strength while re-building endurance.

Hydration / Nutrition

Hydration has never been an issue. I take in fluids almost continuously during a race weekend, ice water and half strength Gatorade…the red fruit punch is my favorite.

But I have been known to be too busy to eat. Nutrition is now an equal priority with hydration. Not bigger meals, I eat something every hour.

Race weekend hydration and between meal nutrition

What is eaten, of course, matters a lot. Older athletes require more protein. So protein bars, chocolate milk, mixed nuts, cashews, turkey sandwiches, and the like are on a race weekend menu. Click HERE for an article on protein and fitness.

Driving Style

My eye-hand coordination and reflexes are not what they were 40 years ago. With that reality, I have made a subtle change to my driving style.

In general, a positive turn-in that squares off corner entry with a late apex is the fast way around a race track. This method requires fast hands to correct corner entry oversteer and my hands are not that fast anymore.

My senior citizen driving style is a gentle, slightly early turn-in with throttle manipulation to hold a long apex. Maybe not quite as fast in, but still pretty fast out, and with much less chance of a spin.

The key to making this method work is steering with the throttle. Everyone (or at least everyone going fast) picks up the throttle before the apex to maintain speed. If the car is not holding a long apex, a tiny bit less maintenance throttle (not more steering angle!) will tighten up the line and position the car for corner exit without losing much, if any, speed.

Click HERE for in-car video that illustrates this senior citizen driving style.

Car Set Up

In this new driving style, the throttle is not an on-off switch. What is required is a long, linear throttle linkage and very stiff return springs. My Lola’s throttle pedal travels almost 2 inches between stops and, with four return springs, snaps back hard.

While my right foot is manipulating the throttle, my left foot is providing balance. A dead pedal in the left corner of the foot box provides a consistent balancing point.

Lola T-540 footbox with dead pedal on left and throttle pedal on right

My shock and bar settings have been evolving towards a stiffer, faster reacting car. This seems counterintuitive as my personal response time is getting slower with age. However, a gentle corner entry gives me confidence that the rear will not step out and a stiffer car is easier to steer with the throttle. The in-car video supports this theory…my hands are quiet and the car appears to be neutral.

Final Thoughts

I suspect that vision is the single most important factor in my improving on-track performance but fitness is close behind.

Training, hydration, and nutrition are not independent. So while I cannot attribute to each their contributions to my improving endurance, I can certainly say that I have more energy on Sundays.

Changes to driving style and car set up are also related. They were not part of a grand plan but were the result of trying new things. The OODA and PDCA problem solving and continuous improvement models apply perfectly in motorsports.

At 68 years old, I had somewhat of a comeback season in 2023. My lap times were very good and I did not fall off the road even once. Beating Father Time? No, but at least holding my own driving a race car as a senior citizen. Maybe I can hang on until the 2033 Formula Ford World Tour…

If you found this blog interesting, visit my Motorsports and FF50th pages for more related content.

PDCA and OODA

September 1, 2023 by stevebeeler

I have been using PDCA as my go-to problem solving and continuous improvement model for 30+ years. Recently, I happened across another great model: OODA. PDCA and OODA are a flexible and powerful combination.

Plan-Do-Check-Act is attributed to Deming and Shewhart and is fundamental in old-school statistical process control. It is simple, easy, and effective. A few trips around the PDCA cycle will lead to measurable improvement.

Plan – Plan to meet an objective

Do – Do the plan…collect data!

Check – Check results…analyze the data!

Act – Act on results

The Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop was developed by military strategist Colonel John Boyd to help fighter pilots quickly process changing air combat situations.

Observe – What has changed?

Orient – What is the current state?

Decide – How to realign with the new state?

Act – Act to change state

OODA has broader applications in sports and business. OODA faster than the competition to create an edge. Think Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage. Or Lewis Hamilton setting up a late race pass…in the rain.

Occasionally, PDCA can get stuck at the “Plan” step. There is so much to work on…what to do next?

That’s the connection between PDCA and OODA. Use OODA loops to identify an “Act” that then becomes a prioritized “Plan” in PDCA. In times of rapid change, jump ahead of the competition with PDCA and OODA.

If you found this blog to be interesting, click HERE for a post on SQDCME, another useful acronym.

Lake Michigan Water Levels

October 8, 2022 by stevebeeler

Record high Lake Michigan water levels and dune erosion have been big concerns along the “north coast” in recent years. As beaches disappeared under the rising water, homes near the shoreline were threatened.

Property owners resorted to armoring the coastline with huge boulders to dissipate wave energy. In many cases, cranes on barges were required to place the boulders.

I finally got around to doing a statistical analysis on Lake Michigan water levels using data from the United States Army Corps of Engineers. For years, control charts have been in my operations engineering toolkit. Why not apply statistical process control to a natural phenomenon?

An X-bar & R chart is commonly used to measure the magnitude of common cause (random) variation and to assess statistical stability (constant probabilities). For a sample plan, I used one data point per year in subgroups of five. That is, each data point on the X-bar chart is an average of five years and each data point on the range chart is the difference between the highest and lowest value in that five-year period. With 103 years of data (1918 to 1921), this sample plan provided twenty data points, the minimum required to calculate control limits.

The range chart (bottom) is in control. All points are within the control limits and there are no trends. This means the magnitude of year-to-year water level variation has been constant over the last 100+ years.

On the other hand, the X-bar chart (top) does not exhibit statistical control. While it is mean centered with no trends, there are multiple points (4 above and 6 below) outside the control limits. This suggests that the five-year sample plan has underestimated the range. In other words, the within subgroup variation did not entirely capture the common cause (that is, random) variation in Lake Michigan water levels.

In retrospect, this is not surprising. While 103 years seems like such a long time, it is not even an instant from a geologist’s perspective. A sample plan with a longer duration appears to be called for but then there would not be enough subgroups to calculate control limits.

Given that the range chart is stable, I suspect that the X-bar chart (i.e., average water levels) would be too if we had data sampled over a sufficiently long period of time.

Others are interested in the Great Lakes. Enough, apparently, to warrant a scientific publication, the Journal of Great Lakes Research. In it, I found an abstract that supports my hypothesis of stable Lake Michigan water levels: “Historical Variation of Water Levels in Lakes Erie and Michigan-Huron” by Craig T. Bishop.

From this abstract I learned that the earliest “reliable” Great Lakes water level data were recorded in 1819. From historical and archeological evidence, Bishop concludes that “… over at least the last 1,800 years, climate-related variations in maximum mean annual water levels have probably not exceeded those measured on Lakes Erie and Michigan-Huron since A.D. 1819.”

That sounds like Lake Michigan water levels have been stable for a long time. In 2022 and again in 2023, the water is down from record levels and beaches are reappearing. The spectacular sunsets never left.

If you would like to perform your own statistical analysis on Great Lakes water levels, click HERE for a link to the United States Army Corps of Engineers data set.

A Deeper Labor Pool

September 21, 2022 by stevebeeler

A Deep Labor Pool

In today’s post COVID economy, labor is in short supply. Here’s an old-school manufacturing best practice that can be used to develop a deeper labor pool.

Way back in the day, I had a production management position at Louisville Assembly Plant during the initial Explorer launch. The launch was hugely successful. Production quickly ramped up to 87 trucks an hour (that’s one off the line every 41 seconds!) and build quality was excellent…off-line repair bays were mostly empty.

A big key to that success was labor versatility. Having trained operators on every job every day just didn’t happen. Training to develop a deeper labor pool was a priority.

A simple tool was used to manage training: the versatility chart. Each production supervisor had one for his or her zone. Down the left side of the chart were all the employees and across the top were all the jobs. If an employee was trained on a job, a “1” was entered in that cell. Across the bottom of the chart were the total number of employees who were trained on that job.

Conceptual example of a versatility chart

Ideally, each job was three deep. That is, there were three trained employees for every position on the line. Versatility gaps became cross-training priorities.

The more jobs your people know, the deeper your labor pool. This simple concept applies outside of manufacturing.

In baseball, rosters are limited by rule. Managers need flexibility to give stars a day off and to make strategic moves in the late innings of close games. Players who can play multiple positions are essential for a deep bench.

In business, people are limited by budgets and, more recently, by labor constraints. Managers need flexibility for any number of reasons: vacations, illnesses, seasonality, etc. Cross-training develops flexibility without adding staff.

So whatever your situation, consider cross-training to develop a deeper labor pool.

Thirty years later, I still use best practices from the Explorer launch in my day job as a Professional Engineer. Click HERE to visit my Operations Engineering page.

Race Trailer 5S

August 26, 2022 by stevebeeler

5S is not just for manufacturing. Here’s an example from motorsports: race trailer 5S. With a little organization, everything needed for a weekend of club racing can be squeezed into a small trailer.

As you might expect from its name, 5S is a five-step process with roots in lean thinking and the Toyota Production System. 5S is a pathway to a clean, uncluttered, organized workplace reducing waste and improving productivity:

1) Sort Get rid of what is not needed…declutter!
2) Set In Order Organize by neatly arranging and labeling
3) Shine Clean
4) Standardize Schedule regular cleaning, organizing, and ordering
5) Sustain Make the first four steps a habit

My Lola T-540 Formula Ford filled up the floor of my old 12-1/2 x 6 trailer. Packed in around the car were an auxiliary battery, an air bottle, a fire extinguisher, a folding table, fuel jugs, tool boxes, chassis stands, and ramp extensions.

The trick to making such a small trailer work was to fully utilize the space above and below the car. Above you would find mounted tires, spare parts totes, noses, a nose frame, a quick jack, a battery charger, drain pans, funnels, lawn chairs, and a big duffel bag with shelter panels. Below were the poles for the shelter.

While a beautiful example of 5S, the many loading and unloading sequence constraints were getting old. So after 20+ years of faithful service, I retired my minimalist trailer for a new 16 x 7 aluminum V-nose from R&R Trailers …but not it’s race trailer 5S methods.

With a little more floor space, my new trailer is much more efficient to load and unload. As before, the space above the car is fully utilized. Spare parts tote capacity has been doubled. Nothing is located on the floor around the car, a huge plus. Loading and unloading sequence constraints are a thing of the past.

The shelter poles are now carried in a tray above the car, a welcome ergonomic improvement. Spare tires are again carried in a rack across the back of the trailer. The E-track also secures flat items like tables against the walls of the trailer.

I built a small workbench and two shelves into the nose of trailer. The workbench is drilled for a vise and a small arbor press, a significant functional upgrade. A helmet shelf organizes my driving gear between sessions.

To eliminate the need for long, heavy ramp extensions, I ordered the trailer with a beavertail and designed a custom ramp door flap. These short structural foam blocks from Race Ramps weigh only two pounds each! What a joy to just roll the car on and off the trailer.

Just as before, everything still has a place. Without the sequence constraints, I can load and unload in just over an hour. When something is needed at the track, I know exactly where it is.

The so what of race trailer 5S? Less is still more but sometimes a little more goes a long way. My old trailer, while loved and admired, was just a little too small.

There are many parallels between motorsports and manufacturing. While there is much good to be said about a small factory footprint, just don’t get too carried away. People and materials need a little room to move around.

For more on race trailers, click HERE for my blog on trailer and tow vehicles.