Racing Schools - How can I get a job on a race team?

How can I get a job on a race team?

"Getting in the Game"

Why does it seem impossible to find work in any specialized field when you are starting out, but equally impossible to find good staff for when you move up and start recruiting staff yourself? It may well be because employers are always looking for specific experience. The attitude of taking someone on from a generally appropriate background and then developing their skills for the specific role is not usually an option. Generally this is thanks to the pressures of the motorsport world where the opportunity and resources to allow an appointee to be trained do not exist.

Such are the harsh realities of the industry, particularly within small teams that comprise the majority of the front line of the sport. But it is particularly tough on graduates who have been told to get a degree if they want to play with the big boys and then find there are still no jobs. That said, I have little sympathy with any engineering graduate who moans over his pint that he's written to every Formula 1 team and every major racecar manufacturer and has had nothing but rejections. Are the limits of his aspirations to become no more that a CAD draughtsman turning out textbook designs to a tight brief for the machinists to whittle from solid?

True engineering is a creative task and requires imagination as much as intellect. Once you start designing things to a set of rules everyone comes up with the same solution. Start using imagination and it becomes possible to come up with ideas that short circuit the rule-driven approach and provide a solution of breathtaking simplicity. To do this, though, takes experience. In order to see the problem from every angle, you need the knowledge of the real-world environment in which it lives, not a spec sheet or textbook problem interpretation of it. To think outside the envelope you need to know what lies outside it. That applies whether it is designing a bell housing or searching for a set-up under the pressure of qualifying.

So experience is quite rightly essential, and students reading this are feeling their hearts sinking. How can they get experience needed to secure a job if they can't get a job in the first place? It's that Catch 22 situation again. But if you are a student thinking that way, let me reproach you immediately for failing to exercise the very skills I've just explained you will need as an engineer. Where's your imagination? You need experience to get a job and you can't get a job to get that experience without it, then find it somewhere else. When did you last attend a motorsport event? And don't bore me with the number of Grand Prix you've personally attended, they don't count. These days it is difficult in the developed world to be far from a motorsports venue. It might be a racing circuit, a stock car stadium, a dirt oval, sprint or solo venue or even a popular rally stage. Get down there when the amateurs are out; the people competing out of their own pockets or with very little budget. They don't have teams of highly paid engineers and mechanics. In fact, they are usually crying out for help.

Wander around the paddock and get chatting with a few of the drivers - at this level he is usually the main man. Particularly try to hook up with someone local to where you live. This will give you your first piece of practical experience, developing interpersonal skills - essential in a team under the pressures of competition. At the end of the day approach the person you get on with best, explain your situation and ask if you can help with his racing effort. Yes I know it is not Formula 1 but don't expect to be analyzing 64 channels of data each lap either.

What that competitor will need is someone to fetch and carry, to help pack and unpack, to check pressures and polish bodywork. Put your engineering hat to one side for a while, the skills you are looking to develop are ones outside the theory you picked up at university. And before you protest, yes it is very relevant, more so than you can imagine. When did you last work under pressure with a small group of people? Are you able to suppress your ego enough to smile every time you get stuck with the shitty jobs? Can you work fast while missing nothing? It's not just a pass mark at stake here; it could be someone's life. If they trust you enough to get involved, you should be flattered.

See if they will let you help with preparation. This is where being geographically close is important and not getting involved with a team that is too big and puts the preparation out to the experts. Once you start doing this, you can offer to create a component log for the car, keeping records of hours on the consumable parts against life predictions. They might not always be able to afford to follow your recommendations, but the information might be well received all the same.

In time, as you gain their confidence, you can start tentatively making suggestions based on your theoretical understanding. Don't be offended if they are rejected at first, but the time will come when they can afford to take a gamble on your theory. If it works, you'll be the hero; if it doesn't then it will be twice as hard to get them to try one of your suggestions again. Now you are being tested in a real-world situation on your abilities, something that you will inevitably experience time and time again in a working environment.

All this may seem low level stuff if you aspire to work at the pinnacle of the sport, but it is precisely what will make the difference between you and a graduate with nothing. The very fact that these amateur competitors do not have the systems in place that the big teams operate is why you can make a difference and learn so much. Also, if it seems a long-winded process that's because it is, but don't wait until you graduate, make the best use of spare evenings and weekends while you are studying. It is a process that, even at the highest levels of the sport, most of the employing managers have been through, so seeing it on your resume' will do nothing but raise their opinion of you immeasurably.

Don't underestimate how much it will benefit you directly either. Whether you intend to be a designer or a race engineer, first hand practical experience of motorsport in invaluable. Also, working with a small under funded amateur operation will give you a breadth of experience that you would struggle to get in a more professional operation. Just don't expect to get paid. Finally the best bit of advice I can give anybody is to always show up when you say you will and always do your best.