Race Mode

Despite having all of the necessary fabricated paperwork, accreditation for the AcMo Wonder School® has not been proceeding as smooth as we had hoped.  It has been quite difficult to achieve.  The source of the problem appears to be the bureaucrazy (that term is much more appropriate) of the system.  There are so many forms and sub-forms to complete.  It is too much work.  I am going to be forced to hire a dedicated staff to finish the forms.  There is probably a grant available to provide the required funding to hire the personnel.

I am aware that traditional schools and universities are desperate to maintain their revenue streams and they are actively campaigning against us as a result.  The future of education is inevitable, so they have engaged in a battle they can’t win.  The sooner they accept this and join us, the better for the welfare of the future students.  We only offer majors that guarantee job placement after graduation.  How many traditional universities can make that statement and deliver?

The lack of certification doesn’t inhibit our ability and desire to learn.  It is imperative that we keep our minds activated, so in the interim we have been using YouTube to expand our knowledge base because it is a powerful educational resource.  Thanks to an email from a friend this weekend, I learned invaluable information.  This video has provided knowledge that will help reduce our automotive and shop insurance premiums, most of our on track incidents, and generally put us in a better mood. This breakthrough was so simple that I’m stunned we have overlooked it for so long.

BMW Auto Complaint

This is not from a BMW, and apparently these letters and numbers don't mean what I thought they did.

It turns out that the “R” on our client’s vehicles’ transmissions does not stand for Race Mode, but instead for reverse.  Engaging it does not raise the risk of voiding the vehicle’s warranty.  Manufacturers expect R to be used, and even built cars to withstand frequent and repeated use of R.  Talk about foresight.  Now that I think about it, reverse makes much more sense than Race Mode, and explains why the cars kept backing up every time I tried to put in a hot lap at the track when I engaged what I thought was Race Mode in the transmission.  Why would Honda and Toyota have installed Race Mode on minivans?  This mistake impacted all available transmissions that have an “R” on them.  I would have figured this out much sooner if I had been able to read the manuals, but who has time to do that?  Even a quick YouTube video would have taught us all we needed to know about driving fast.

It has also become quite clear that the “P” does not indicate Practice Mode.  That explains why all of the vehicles equipped with automatic transmissions refused to budge when placed in P before entering the track.  I hope this insight will result in fewer removals from the hot pits by tow truck.

Large portions of our days in the shop were spent maneuvering vehicles.  In fact, there were some days when our only task consisted of pushing vehicles around the shop floor, similar to how I used to push papers on my desk.  We understood that Race Mode was only safe to engage on a track or closed course, so we had to use wheel dollies to push the cars into position.  This is not hard labor, but it is time consuming.  Those wasted minutes add up to wasted hours quite fast.  The only upside was that those were billable hours.  Now we can spend the time being productive and bill even more for that time.

If we were wrong about Race Mode, it stands to reason that our entire understanding and use of transmissions was wrong as well.  We would engage first gear when we wanted to finish first at an event.  That made sense because only losers would use gears 6-8 where applicable.  Those gears would guarantee missing out on a podium finish.  AcMo is staffed with winners, and winners want the top step of the podium all of the time, which is why we loved first gear.

The closing speeds of similar cars at our track events always astounded us.  We knew our client’s vehicles had issues—that’s how we ended up with the cars—but we were convinced the engines weren’t developing full power based on our dynamometer results.  This was also probably an error in measurement because we thought we were running the cars in Race Mode for maximum power.  Those numbers didn’t prepare us for the shock of being passed by similar cars with far less talented drivers as if we were moving in the wrong direction.

One simple YouTube video has taught me so much about proper automotive transmission operation.  I’ve already fabricated a memo that has been distributed to all of the staff and board to educate them on this new information.

I am certain this discovery will allow us to stay on track for entire sessions and may even provide the opportunity to get up to speed and not get lapped constantly.  At the very least, I think we will reverse the trend of being banned from events shortly after arriving.  As I mentioned earlier, being able to reverse vehicles under their own power has and will continue to increase shop productivity levels by unimaginable amounts.

This has made me curious as to what other areas we may have misconstrued the meaning of symbols and gauges.  I hope we have not been going through life doing everything wrong and in reverse.