Retrospectives

Failure is the most important part of learning. Or something. All of us fail, but only some of us learn from it. Something I've learned from my career in software development, is a ceremony, or meeting, or tribal commitment called the Retrospective. In software, we often break our work up in 2 week chunks, and we "retro" at the end of every period.

The point of a retro is to introduce a continuous feedback mechanism into what you're doing, and how you're doing it. We do this by sitting down and having honest, open, and sometimes difficult conversations. A retro isn't just about what sucks, or things that need fixed. It's also about what is working, and how we can do more of that.

Retros serve an entirely different, and hard to quantify function. It's part celebration, a time to recognize people and actions that we all appreciate. It's part therapy, a time to complain, and bitch, and process something we're grumpy about. It's ultimately about extending a shared experience, and deepening the bonds that make us a team.

And we do it for Lemons! I keep talking about how this blog is about learning, but everything we do is about trying to learn. So, of course we do a retrospective every race. I've talked about our use of Trello before, and we use it here too. A retro includes three boards

• What went well
• What could be better
• What are we going to do about it

We name them differently, of course. Borrowing from the lingua franca of Lemons:

• Hella Sweet
• Butt Turrible
• To-Do

Some of the stuff on any given list might be really significant. Some is trivial and lighthearted. Sharing and talking about all of it is important.

This is a dump from our June 2022 BFE GP race retro, with some great victories,  unfortunate mistakes, near catastrophes, and important lessons.

Pulling a few interesting learnings out of this list:

we fucking finished

we didn't break

we finished great

This was our first race that we didn't have to thrash on the car to fix hubs, brakes, brakes, brakes, brakes, wheel studs, or brakes. Stuff breaks, and Lemons is about problem solving and wrenching your way through it. Pretty amazing though when nothing breaks and you get to just race.

bret got us belts and saved the fucking race

Learning: belts and fire suppression have expiration and service schedules. We nearly missed the race by discovering on Wednesday of RACE WEEK that our fire suppression was due for service. Thankfully Wine Country has a retail location and we were able to get a new bottle.

3.6.2.1 ...Harnesses with expiration dates are not valid after the expiration date. Harnesses with a manufacture date but no expiration date are acceptable for two years after manufacture.

Then, on Friday before the race, we realized our belts were expired also!

3.6.3     Onboard Fire Suppression System...Per SFI and FiA mandate, all systems must be serviced every two years by the manufacturer or its authorized service agent and must carry an active service or maintenance label showing the last-service date and service-due date.

Stop what you are doing, right now, and go to your garage and check your certification and expiration dates.

pit stops went well

Pit stops and fueling can be stressful times. You're fully suited, slowly roasting, with gas and cars and the clock and all of it. Practice getting in and out of your cars. Know before you go to the hot pit who is doing what.

found a good spot for transponder

We lost a transponder the race before this during an unscheduled wheel separation event. Transponders are expensive. Happily the team walked the field near the track, and found it! We now mount it in the rear wheel well, where even the loss of a wheel should not knock it off.

toe didn't touch

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean (editors note: the author has a terrible memory)

Sometimes, the track lets us do a track walk before the race. Sometimes, it's skated instead of walked. Sometimes, you kickflip over the start/finish line. Sometimes, you get enough air your toe doesn't touch!

hugging the frootloops driver

I had an incredible session Sunday morning of this race battling the Froot Loops old BMW 5 series. We started the day with them in 7th, me in 8th. I overtook him. He overtook me. I got him back. Close racing, in the corners, down the straight, for an hour and 40 minutes. I got one final overtake before I had to pit (woo), and then he followed me into the pits!

Some part of me began to worry I had done something to offend this guy.

We got out and approached each other exclaiming what an incredible session it was. We hugged. I get a little misty just thinking about what that meant to me. You can be competitive, and battle, and drive safe, and be on the edge, and make friends all at once. What a hobby.

great comms

I'll write up more on this later, but we've really nailed our in-car radio system. While not strictly required, I can't imagine racing without it. Dialing placement, volume, and in-helmet systems takes some trial and error.

gunbarrell cobras sharing the seat belts

I've mentioned Dan from Gunbarrell Cobras before here, he built our cage! Well, they also saved our grits with the expired belts above. Ultimately we were able to buy our own, but they were there in a pinch. This is a big part of Lemons - teams help each other. We love it, and the community it creates.

Alright, enough sunshine. Let's talk about what did not go well.

malort

IYKYK

racing in the fucking goddamn pit and getting a black flag for buzzing the tower

I mentioned above my super great session with the Froot Loops BMW. Well, I came into the pits pretty amped up and exceeded "reasonable paddock speed". Nothing to say but I screwed up. That's a lesson too: keep your head on, even in the paddock.

right hans hook

We sent one of our drivers out without his right hans clip attached. This is not ok. Pit entry steward discovered it before clearing him to the track. Action item: ensure someone else hand checks all your gear.

the video

I have no learnings for this one. No wisdom to impart. Just pure, uncut, sorrow. We are cursed to never have full video for a race. Power problems. Camera problems. Temperature problems. Editor problems. IDK, we just suck at video.

Lastly, our "To Do" from the Retro. These items are sometimes directly tied to "Hella Sweet" and "Butt Turrible" things, sometimes just brainstorms in the conversation.

resume checklists and procedures, update with checks for all gear, bottle, belts

We had a few near misses and mistakes this race (belts, fire suppression, hans clip) that a basic checklist would save us from. We have a checklist already, now we have a better one.

transmission or something

This made me chuckle. We've had a growing "popping out of 3rd gear" problem randomly crop up. This race it was pretty bad. We had collectively decided to let that fucker fly, as they say. Well, she flew in the next race. Hey, at least it was on a To Do list.

G to get our finances in order

This isn't a dig at Gregory, it's a recognition of how complex the money side of this gets. At any given time we've got 4 or 5 people who might be buying parts, donating to the operating fund, paying race dues. It's complicated. Might be worth a future guest post by our team CFO.

Retrospectives like this are common in dozens of professions, from the somber post-mortem of the Emergency Room to the frivolous Lemons race retro. We choose to run ours very much like we run them at work, after all, you live what you know. However you choose to do it, make sure to get some time with your team a few days, or a week, after the race. Don't wait too long, memories are short and this is best done with the race still fresh in our minds.

Talk about how it went. Talk about what could be better. Talk about what you will never, ever, ever do again. Like exceeding hot pit speed limits.