Wes Buck
A friend of mine once told me he believed people are like coil springs: you compress them over and over, and each time they bounce back just a little bit less than they did before. Eventually, the springs wear out and don’t have any rebound whatsoever.
While there are a number of what I believe to be great “teams” in the racing community, I don’t think we can ever put enough emphasis on good people and positive company or crew culture; especially in an industry that churns out a new, high-tech, lightweight or next-generation doohickeys on a consistent basis.
Personally, I’ve primarily been exposed to the old-school management and leadership styles that often exist in small business: the notion that keeping employees and team members fearing for their jobs will keep them working hard to stay employed. And while I’ve had a few gigs that offered a much different environment than that, I’ve never operated within a Google-like environment where naps, back rubs and snack breaks were mandatory.
In this day and age of nearly constant projectile vomiting of 25-cent words, marketing lingo and tech talk it’s hard for me to even bring up something like “company culture,” but I can’t deny its existence—and importance, in my opinion—to the success or failure of any group or organization.
The best companies and the best race teams foster a sense of trust between employees and crew members that allows them to focus on achieving goals together. When the culture of a company encourages destructive competition, internal politics and the like, you’re virtually guaranteed to find yourself on the opposite end of the spectrum. In drag racing that means a car that won’t fire or is shut off for leaking; in business it’s a company that fails at startup or is outperformed or quickly outdated by the competition.
I recently read a book—which I loved—called Leaders Eat Last, by one of my favorite authors and speakers, Simon Sinek. It reads: “We’ve succeeded as a species because of our ability to form cultures. Cultures are groups of people who come together around a common set of values and beliefs. A company is a group of people brought together around a common set of values and beliefs. It’s not products and services that bind a company together. It’s not size and might that make a company strong. It’s the culture—the strong sense of beliefs and values that everyone, from the CEO to the receptionist, all share.”
People really are everything in business, and I think the same easily applies to racing organizations and teams. If there’s anything I’ve learned over eight years of running DRAG ILLUSTRATED and a lifetime spent in the drag racing industry, it’s the importance of having the right people on your team. Give the best people bad equipment and I bet they’ll qualify and go rounds. Give bad people the best equipment? I think you know the answer.
People really are everything, and the people you align yourself with will either put you in the winner’s circle or put you on the trailer.
GOOD READS
- A lot of work and preparation goes into a mountain-motor Pro Stock engine before it goes on the dyno, as the guys at Jon Kaase Racing Engines demonstrate in this photo story.
- The NHRA is reporting that Jenna Haddock, wife of Funny Car driver Terry Haddock, will make her Top Fuel debut this coming weekend at the 35th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway, near Denver.
- The Buffalo News reports on Top Fuel driver Bobby Lagana Jr. carrying on the tradition and memories of his father, who unexpectedly passed away nearly a year ago.
GOOD VIEWS
- Here’s a wild and unique GoPro video of Shannon Butler’s Procharger F2 SBF-powered Mustang hitting the wall hard this spring at Chitown’s KOTXI King of the Streets race.
- Here’s a blast from the not-so-distant past: a promotional video featuring action from the 2009 ADRL tour.
This story was originally published on July 15, 2014. 
