the crew chief declares, "The tires spun." The mechanic says, "Ran through the clutch." Someone from another team chimes in, "Not enough rpm." So we have heard from a panel of experts without ever looking at the computer data or watching a videotape of the run. Their observations may in fact have no connection to reality, but they have already made up their minds on what happened - and what to do next.

     I occasionally encounter the same snap judgments in my engine-building business. Customers have told me, "That carburetor is junk," or "The torque converter is dead" on the basis of one bad run. When I press for more information to support the conclusion, there often isn't any. As I've noted before, a race car is an incredibly complex mechanical device. What you initially identify as the problem may not be the true culprit at all! A poorly performing carburetor, for example, can really be a symptom of a malfunctioning fuel pump, a kinked fuel line, a clogged filter, a bad air box design, or a hundred other shortcomings. If your ego doesn't allow you to step back and analyze the situation, then it's unlikely you will solve the problem correctly.

     At the top levels of the sport, we see some pro racers who change cars as often as they 

change spark plugs. That's a product of the same irrational thinking. How can a team fairly evaluate a sophisticated race car in a half-dozen passes? With all of the variables of clutch, suspension, shock absorbers, weight distribution, gear ratio, and dozens of other factors, it can take months to sort out a chassis properly. Yet when one builder or another suddenly produces a "magic" chassis, the stampede to his doorstep begins.

     I'm not a psychologist, but I do take the time to think about how people behave in racing - and in life. Perhaps it's human nature to look for external causes for our problems, to place the blame on another person or object rather than ourselves. But when I reflect honestly about races I've lost, in the vast majority of instances it was because my teammates or I made bad decisions - not because a part was faulty or the guy in the other lane played staging games.

     Every eliminator category in drag racing has its own degree of difficulty. In Pro Stock, we're obsessed with finding a thousandth of a second in elapsed time. In a heads-up eliminator, it's all about dialing the car and hitting the light. In every class, the people who think logically and clearly about their racing program usually dominate.