Quiet Time

It's always the quiet moments during a lull in activity I fear most. Monday mornings are like that a lot when everyone is coming off a different pace from the weekend.  The quiet combined with waiting for prototypes to finish printing at Office Max or Depot--I can never differentiate them--in the early morning hours at AcMo leave my mind too much time to anticipate the next crisis. I never know what it will be, but I always know a new one is inevitable. Will we be equipped to overcome the challenge?  So far we have been, but I know we can't win them all.

This past weekend was spent removing a turbocharger that resigned citing intolerable work conditions during testing at Road America.  The turbo had been complaining for a while, but since we closed the complaint department, the turbo's cries were never received.  At least that past crisis isn't a current surprise.  The situation may change when the repair bill arrives.

Working alone in the garage with your trusted tools can be a great experience.  No one else knows when you decide to wear your slippers instead of appropriate work shoes, and no one can hear your screams when the heavy turbocharger slips from your oily fingers and lands on your slipper shod feet.  No one can see your tears as you struggle to figure out how to avoid cleaning your hands on your clothes so you can grip the turbo well enough to remove it from your now swelling feet.  When the job is done, all you have to do is craft a convincing cover story why you could walk on Friday, but now you can't on Monday.  A lot of things happen on the weekends, so it shouldn't be hard to get the story right.  I was involved in a pedestrian vs. chicken hawk (they are far more stout than you would believe) collision while walking in the park.

Too much heat!  No more spool time for us.

This is the inevitable result of too much high boost.  Imagine what it would look like if we had installed a TGE™on this car! 

It's hard to see in this shot, but there's oil down there.  This is not going to make AcMo rich like the Beverly Hillbillies though.

The removal was simple enough considering I'm an expert at disassembly.  The only issue was from
oil spilling everywhere, which happened despite taking reasonable precautions in advance to prevent a mess.  I think oil by nature just likes to spill whenever possible.  It is also puzzling that there always seems to be more oil coming out than could have possibly been in the system in the first place.  How does it do that?  I could have let one of the mechanics (not Moe!) handle the removal, but it's good to get my hands dirty so I can remember the process.  I need to keep my skills sharp to be ready when the pro teams call.  I hope to have this turbo fixed and returned to AcMo soon for reinstallation.

I always get a bit discouraged when something breaks and ends the weekend even though I should be used to it by now.  All I ever need to do is watch a professional car race and see teams that spend a few dollars more, and have one or two smarter people on staff than AcMo.  When one of those teams has an unexplained failure to end their weekend I'm reminded that it isn't just our bad luck.

Preparation is important to success, but sometimes there are more variables than any amount of prior work can surmount.  That is what happens to AcMo on a regular basis.  We are ultra-prepared in areas that won't effect our performance while we are not appropriately prepared on the mechanical side.  I blame that on a number of factors other than myself.

Since we have an extensive database of failure modes, we are taking steps to eliminate most of them from interfering with our future track days.  We are moving our business model to focus 110% of our efforts on customer car failure testing instead of our own cars.  This will work out much better for everyone involved, except our customers.

Today was unusual in that the phones didn't ring, and no emergencies occurred.  This is not normal for us.  I'm a bit concerned now.  I did check to confirm we still had working phones--that's part of my daily security sweep.  To a master planner, it is almost always the obvious detail that becomes the catalyst for failure when it is overlooked, which is why I always check the phones and the lights.

I may not know what will happen next, but I know whatever it is, I might be ready for it, and it won't be something obvious.

Chasing the Line

The Keyhole @ Mid-OH (If your car ends up out here, you're doing it wrong.)

AcMo was founded so that we could get paid to play on tracks around the country.  That was the idea and vision.  The reality is that the bills are hard to pay--key person insurance is a real killer, and track time is expensive.  AcMo was forced to pivot during a time of extreme economic distress.  That pivot placed us in a unique position to offer track related services to our clients.  We differ from the other companies out there in that we do all of our testing using our client's vehicles.  This reduces our overhead, and provides us the opportunity to break other people's machinery.

We are excited to announce that we have recently acquired two test drivers who last worked with Daewoo in the chassis development department.  These two have said they are responsible for the signature wooden float ride and expired and dried out sponge handling of Daewoo's cars.  No one here understood any of that, perhaps as a result of a translation error, however, we think we liked what they were selling, so we brought them onboard for an unpaid probationary period.  Plus we didn't want to be rude.  Those cost savings are not passed along to our clients.  We can't afford it.

I would appreciate it if you keep our financials confidential because the staff here and the new marketing department are not aware that we are perched on the edge of a bottomless pit of financial despair and ruin.  A few poorly timed trades involving pork bellies have not helped the situation improve.

If you consider yourself a high performance driver, keep reading.  If not, keep reading anyway because you will learn something, and we don't get paid for this stuff unless everyone reads the whole post.  When racing or doing Driver's Ed (DE), the proper driving line is important--even more so when you are at a track that charges for unintentional lawn mowing.  I still maintain that type of mowing is a valuable service, and the tracks should be paying us.  Whether you are trying to win your DE, or a professional race, driving the correct line in the correct direction will help get you there. 

First you need to know where the line is.  A different perspective often helps visualize the correct line through corners.  We prefer to use the AcMo helicopter to gain that perspective, but since we've never had a profitable day, we've been reduced to using a custom-built, carbon fiber chassis quadcopter equipped with eight GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition cameras.  This is only used when we can afford to charge the batteries.  I would share video from our latest track walk, but I am tired of having people steal my life's work and profit from it, so now it is only shared with paying clients on a sporadic basis.

We live and drive in three dimensions, so the track walk is another component of our complete track analysis.  Walking the track isn't enough though; it's critical that you pay attention to the track surface and direction instead of daydreaming while enjoying a brisk walk.*  Once you've established a general idea of the line through corners it is time for one of our instructors to get in your car and experiment.  We Start out slow and build speed as we memorize the correct line and braking zones.  We've found that the best way to tackle braking zones is with your eyes closed.  No one ever wins their DE in the first session, but you sure can lose it if you crash in the pit lane on the out lap--true story.  

This is just a general primer to help point you toward fast lapping your favorite track some time soon.  If you would like additional information, or even better, want to hire us to destroy your prized possession, contact us today!  We have a client who is in the process of acquiring a Porsche 911 Turbo.  He's already tasked us with showing him the car's full potential.  We have pre-registered for events at VIR and Summit Point to show the owner just what it takes to break a 911 Turbo at high speeds.  This knowledge will benefit him a great deal on his next new vehicle purchase which will be to replace his soon-to-be broken 911 Turbo.  We also plan to flog the replacement vehicle on track.

Knowing the proper technique and executing on a competent and repeatable basis separate the punters from the heroes.  At AcMo, we've been turning heroes into punters for decades.  If you encounter an AcMo approved vehicle and driver at your next track event, give them both a wide berth.  You know the driver will be fast, but the car will be close to its expiration date.  We may not be the best or fastest, but we know how to cut corners (and track lawns) better than anyone.  Become an AcMo approved driver today.  The track awaits.

*It has been brought to my attention that track walks during active driving sessions are prohibited.  I forget the exact reasons why, but it had something to do with traffic, liability, and extreme danger, or, in other words, a bunch of legal nonsense.