An Unexpected Off-season
Every year from November to April, the short track racer has a lot going on. First, they reconnect with their family in preparation for the holidays. After months of spending every free in the garage, on the road, or at the race track, they take a well-deserved break.
In unison with the end of the season, reboot comes planning for next year. Racers will visit trade shows, gather new parts, and take their chassis to the builder for updates and corrections from the bumps and bruises of the past season. The lack of immediate urgency translates into more time in the shop, but the time is more controlled and predictable. You can easily say to your spouse; I’m going over to the shop for a few hours; I’ll be back for dinner and mean it. With correct time management, there is less stress to make it to the next event as the next event is still several months away (this is not to say you won’t be thrashing as the season approaches. We are still racers and that’s what we do).
So now here it is approaching April, you’ve spent the winter gather all the latest parts to improve performance. You’ve taken the engine back to the builder to have it freshened and ready to take on all challengers. You’ve refined your setup to perfection based on the plethora of notes gathered over the years and are prepared to load the truck and trailer and go racing.
Then boom! We enter a time in history none of expected; we are in a time of social distancing. The government has placed limits on attendance at events; there are businesses shut down; you face the possibility of “self-isolating” yourself for some time. And you say to yourself, but I’m ready to go racing, now what?
You are left asking yourself what can I do while I wait for the world to catch up. My excitement to go racing is at its season’s highest, and now the car just sits in the garage and waits and waits. I can tell you I feel your pain. For our team, we race an indoor series with a Three-Quarter Midget, and the afternoon before the race, the state of New York banned all gatherings over 250 people. This order forced the promoters to cancel the event, and there was little chance of having it rescheduled. Baring a major winter snowstorm, who would have thought an indoor activity would be cancelled?
Now, moving forward, what do you do? The car is ready, you’ve stocked the trailer with spare parts, and your uniform is clean. You are ready for the season, but the season is not ready for you. Here at DDR Motorsports, we are planning on taking it as just an extended off-season and will be using the time to better prepare ourselves for when the season does open up. Weekly maintenance tasks such as nutting and bolting and fluid changes are not necessary for the time being, but what about learning more about the car? How about training the junior or new team members more thoroughly? You could research new sponsors or, at the very least, stay in touch with the current ones.
For myself and my team, we expect our first race to be April 18, and though they have not officially canceled it, with the current state of things, it is in jeopardy of being postponed. From a planning standpoint, it does not make it easy as you need to prepare still as though it’s going to happen, but the enthusiasm is not as high as it usually would be. Much like we do with our race strategy our team as spoken about the various avenues this could go, will the race go on or not, if not when will our season open up, what other projects can we do, etc.
From our team’s standpoint, it is still the off-season, and we are preparing for racing it like any other off-season. This season just doesn’t have a start date yet. We also have a few other projects in the works.
Tell us what you are working on and what is keeping you busy during the unexpected off-season.
Doug Robbie
Owner
DDR Motorsports
#27 Tour Type Modified