Team Management: Building a new DP team in 2005

One of the greatest challenges I faced in 2005 was helping to establish the new CB Motorsports Daytona Prototype team. In addition to engineering the car, the hardest aspect of the project was to groom and teach Bingham’s business manager how to run a racing team. Building the team infrastructure in under a month—defining crew roles, pit lane duties, event schedules, operational documents, and about 50 other items all needed to be implemented ASAP.


With the deal coming together so late, our first event, the California Speedway event in April, was a long weekend of very little sleep. That’s not a complaint–just a reality. Between staying up until 3-4am each night in the week preceding the event and during the event creating the aforementioned infrastructure, making Microsoft PowerPoint presentations for the crew.

With many of them new to GrandAm, the litany of rules, procedures, and policies that had to be memorized was vital. The hectic but controlled pace of our debut didn’t end when our day at the track was done— it just meant it was time to scour the local Fontana CompUSA at closing time to find laptops best suited for data acquisition, buy matching pants for the crew, and various other items that were necessary for an impressive showing on and off the track. With all of this in mind, I’m quite proud of debuting with a very respectable 14th starting place and a finish in 13th place.

We team went from strength to strength after Fontana, but the investment of time, energy, and expertise to launch a brand new professional sportscar team in under a month will stand as one my most rewarding team management accomplishments.

A kind note from Chris Bingham:

“Marshall has been instrumental in the success of our team. Since he joined us the energy level and enthusiasm he has shown has been beyond all expectations. Maintaining such a cool head and building cohesion with a new team on a new car has been admirable. The dedication to the teams success and effort in reaching that success has been on par with many team owners I have spent time with. Marshall filled many roles for our team, often beyond those that were asked, and did so with a unique and positive manner. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with him and look forward to future successes, in no small doubt thanks to his help.”

Chris Bingham
Owner/Driver CB Motorsports
Grand Am Daytona Prototype Team #15

NHRA Sports Compact Drag Racing: Managing an 1100hp Factory Subaru

My first foray into drag racing came in 2004—the childhood friend of a former mechanic that worked for me in Indycars called to see if I was available to turn a struggling racing team around. As that’s one of the things I’m best at doing, it sounded intriguing.

Enter Ali Afshar, owner of Easy Street motorsports (ESX), NHRA drag racer, actor, and guy in immediate need for someone to transform his flagging program into a collected, cohesive factory effort.

Drag Racing was the one big whole in my resume–I’d done most everything else but drag racing, so getting my hands around ESX’s Subaru of America/Subaru Performance Tuning Impreza WRX STI was a great learning experience.

I’d worked with plenty of other manufacturers in the past, and the level of performance and presentation expected by Subaru wasn’t intimidating. If anything, I found that Afshar and I had similar stratospheric expectations for the team to be immaculate in every area.

As is often the case in drag racing (as I’d soon learn) not all of the crew members consider timeliness, cleanliness, personal presentation, or a “work first, play second” part of their professional responsibility. This isn’t meant to be a cutting remark, but I will admit it took me a while to grasp the more relaxed drag racing crew mentality; all of my experience was based on quiet efficiency, not the sloth-like daze I saw under so many teams’ tents.

For once, I was officially an outsider at a race track.

It took some time for me to partly adapt to the different environment, just as it took ESX’s crew time to see that some of what “the new manager guy” was implementing would be beneficial to consider.

My managerial style has always been one of trying a soft approach first, seeing if people are willing to act and embrace what I’m putting into place, and if not, work to either inspire or push each individual towards the light. I’ve worked for many people that have the opposite policy: come in swinging a big axe, relax and be nice to those that fall in line, and chop down those that don’t.

That’s never worked on me, so I’ve never seen how it could work for me.

Still, a number of the ESX crew took A LOT of effort and coaxing to come around; I’m a big fan of getting up early, getting work done, finishing the day early, and having plenty of time left to rest or play away from the track—this wasn’t something people took to or grasped for the most part.

Instead, the convention of getting to the track a little late, working slow, and turning eight hours of work into twelve was an accepted practice that I’m still not sure got solved. I think I got the team down to ten hour work days, so some semblance of a compromised improvement was had.

Firing everybody, while tempting on numerous occasions, wasn’t a genuine option, so like my efforts to shorten our work day at the track, I had to pick and choose the battles that would first help the team improve, and then improve our overall practices. In 2004, ESX set records as the fastest and quickest Sport Compact RWD car in the world, winning a handful of NHRA “Wally’s” in doing so. Pretty neat stuff.

I can say my drag racing management experiences were memorable and taught this old dog some new tricks. The sights and sounds of the 1000+ horsepower sports compact drag cars spooling up their turbos on the startline, banging off the anti-lag electronic controls with 150 or more decibels of concussive exhaust pulses, spitting sparks and flames, and launching down the track in nine seconds is absolutely mind numbing. The anti-lag systems can only be compared to a turbocharged, motorized concerto of hundred-per-second tank and mortar explosions 10 feet from your head.

I’ve been inches from Indycars, Stock Cars, and Lord knows what else that can blow out ear drums and cause disorientation, and all combined, they’d be stomped by any NHRA Sports Compact car glued to the rev limit with the anti-lag system activated.

Overall, I’m glad I learned a new game–I’d gladly take on running another drag team. Working with the Subaru brass was the easiest and most familiar part for me—I guess my approach as a racing team manager has its roots in the boardroom just as much as it does leading the men in the trenches, so working both sides of the job is what keep things fresh for me.

The party atmosphere was different in this NHRA series, fun, but different than what I was accustomed to. Pulling the ESX team out of that party mentality was a chore, but not one I wasn’t prepared for. I still work with some of them today in a variety of ESX projects I’m involved with. I’d like to think those that are still there have grown and learned from me in the three years they’ve known me.

If so, my efforts dating back to ‘04 have been worthwhile.

Managing and Engineering with Friends, Foes, & Accomplices…

I’ve been fortunate to know David Spitzer for some time now. We’d met when he was a powerplant engineer and technician for GM’s Oldsmobile IRL program–I was managing and engineering for an Olds-powered IRL team. In addition to our sharing a similar, exceptionally twisted sense of humor, Spitzer and I also shared many of the same professional perspectives. As he rose from the ranks as an engine guru to a program manager for GM, I was proud to see a friend and respected colleague earn the success he deserved.

While I can’t go into detail on any of the other assistance I provided to the Cadillac team beyond working with the drivers, I will mention that the Team Cadillac World Challenge GT program that Spitzer manages is a perfect reflection of his detail and success-driven character.
Even with a bigger budget and more resources, I couldn’t do any better of a job with the team than he’s done.

“Marshall’s a knowledgeable engineer and racing leader, with a healthy dose of experience and realism that is a rare mix. His expertise ranges from grass roots and street tuning techniques up to and including top level professional motorsports. I would not hesitate to recommend Marshall for a broad range of projects and team roles - he’s one of the best.”

Dave Spitzer
Program Manager
GM Racing

Managing the 034 VW Jetta-Mahle Turbo SPEED World Challenge Touring Car Debut

I was asked by Christian Miller to manage and engineer his World Challenge TC Volkswagen Jetta in his team’s debut at the Laguna Seca finale. The car, an ‘05 bodied Jetta built in the late ’90’s by VW Motorsports, had a VERY strong Cosworth prepared 2.0L turbo engine (the engine is prepared by Mahle, the English arm of Cosworth’s customer programs). Chris and his family owned team are as warm and friendly as can be, and were also sharp enough to bring in a veteran to launch their effort.

The car was plagued with a number of issues in pre-event testing and throughout the race weekend; the VW Motorsports fuel tank and pump arrangement caused frequent starvation issues, a custom brake disc failed, etc. My notes to the team for the off season was to free the car from as many “VW Motorsports” custom parts, and replace them with standardized solutions that could be found or replaced at the track if necessary. In talking to Chris recently, the team has acted on that recommendation.

With fuel starvation (on a full tank) during qualifying, Chris only managed 3 hot laps with the car. Suffering an engine that was stumbling constantly under acceleration, he still qualified 28th out of 38 cars. Barring cutting the stock tank from the car and installing a custom ATL cell while in the paddock, something far beyond the fabrication abilities of any team at the event, the car was destined to suffer this problem for the race. The mechanics on our team had an indomitable spirit, and worked late into the night replacing all the fuel lines, the fuel pump, and fashioning new fuel pickups and a new collector can for inside the tank.

While this ended up being an improvement, it still didn’t solve the problem. Weekends like this are a great lesson on many fronts: no matter how well planned an effort might be, when dealing with a modest budget or an aging car, one’s first race weekend will usually have some big challenges to overcome. In a perfect world (or a world with a nice budget and new car), those problems can and should be minimized. Plenty of testing is prime solution to ridding your car of gremlins.

In this scenario, and because our 3-day test just prior to the race was cut short in the first 15 minutes of the test when the flywheel had a VERY messy divorce with the VW crankshaft at 7000RPMs, I knew the race weekend would be an uphill battle. I spent a lot of time preparing the team and mechanics for this likelihood–you never want to sour the mood of your team before an event, so tempering the news that we needed to expect to have unexpected problems to solve with the belief that we’d overcome those challenges no matter what they were, was vital. Every official WCTC session was cut short for us due to fuel-related maladies, and the fuel tank was opened between every session. Every mechanic had at least one arm completely immersed in a . I’m proud to say that the entire team kept their heads down, worked feverishly, and refused to quit when the reasons for pressing onwards were becoming hard to invent.

Knowing the race would be rather arduous, and that our late night fuel cell mods would have to go untested as the last session of the weekend was the race itself, Chris and I decided to take every opportunity possible to practice his standing starts on his way to grid, and on the parade laps for the race. The car was plenty fast when is wasn’t hampered by problems, so maximizing the start would be our best chance to make up for the unrepresentative 28th starting place we’d earned. We also knew that for as long as the car ran (and we’d hoped it would run the entire race with fuel being adequately delivered to the engine…), Chris would be marching forward.

I chose to call the race from the 4th floor of the Laguna Seca observation tower to give Chris an “eye in the sky” to help him with the multiple passing maneuvers expected. Chris nailed the best start in the field (hard to do with a FWD turbo-motor, BTW), and by lap 7, had passed 12 cars on his march up the field. On lap 7, and while in 16th, he locked his brakes at the corkscrew and was hit from behind by Memo Gidley. It wasn’t Memo’s fault–he had nowhere to go to avoid Chris. With his bumper cover dragging behind the car, Chris was called in and the boys ripped it free.

As if the race had to be run all over again, Chris returned to the track in the same spot he’d started in, 28th, and began the fight all over again. Minus his rear bumper, and with fuel starvation problems making an unwelcome return, Chris fought on for 8 more laps and picked up 5 more spots, retiring on lap 16 (of 20) while in 23rd place. We were ultimately classified in 32nd place.

Despite the numerous obstacles throughout the weekend, and what on paper looks to be a story of failure (started 28th, finished 32nd), there were actually some great positives to emerge. I’ve mentioned the impressive display of attitude and work ethic by the crew, but the pace of Christian Miller in his WCTC debut was also a revelation (not to those that know of him, but to the rest of the Pro Racing community that hadn’t seen him race before.)

Adding up the cars he had to pass and re-pass in the race, Chris made up 17 places! With nothing but limited track time in every session prior to the race, he overcame many trials that normally derail a driver from performing at his or her best. The Jetta has tons of potential, and Chris has the talent to make use of all of it. I’d expect Chris and the Jetta to make a strong push for rookie of the year in 2006, and wish them the best.

World Challenge GT: Managing and Engineering a Dodge Viper

As time allowed during 2004 and 2005, I managed and engineered the Dodge Viper of privateer Michael Hartley in the SPEED GT series, enjoying a modicum of success for his part-time program.

On a highly restricted budget, Hartley had limited resources and even more restricted seat time to challenge for the top 12. With sparse testing and the late addition of a Motec data system, Mike’s fortunes did vastly improve from his form before I came into help, but as always happens, his tight budget eventually forced him out of the series.

I’ve always enjoyed helping the smaller teams, the “underdog’s,” I guess, so helping Mike fit in nicely to my other more serious efforts in ‘04 and ‘05. Guys like Mike are needed in SPEED GT to keep the flow of local talent in balance with the factory teams.

Keeping my hand in helping club racers, amateurs, and semi-pro drivers or teams is something I’ll always make time for.