Jenny Drives her Jeep Cherokee with no doors for the first time.
The Spirituality of Driving
The Spirituality of Driving
In his book, The Power of Now, one of the examples Eckhart Tolle uses of people who naturally live in the moment are people who drive race cars. Being in the moment is how he defines a spiritual process.
Having driven in automobile races and rallies, I understand what he is saying. In order to be competitive and to drive safely, you need to have your mind clearly focused on the task at hand when driving a race car. If you are thinking about what you did last week, or what you plan to do after the race, you will loose time on the track and in the worst case, you will crash the car.
I have also found that driving off road makes me focus on the moment almost as much as racing. While the time pressure is not always there in the off road environment, the need to be clearly alert to my surroundings is. I have to know where my tires are at all times and be keenly aware of the amount of traction available. I can’t do any of that if my mind is distracted or focused elsewhere.
Often as we drive our daily commutes, we do not have this keen focus to the task of driving. We sometimes put driving on mental auto pilot and allow our minds to wander through all sorts of thoughts – some that make us happy and others that bring us grief.
We can however choose to use any time behind the wheel as a deeply spiritual time. By simply focusing on driving the car and paying attention to the surroundings, we can bring our focus in to the eternal now and block out thoughts of past and future.
Often it is easier to bring back attention to driving by taking a different route. For example, instead of taking the interstate, take the old US highway that parallels it. It may take a few minutes longer but just notice the feeling of release that you feel as you look at the scenery and focus on the details of driving the car.
Even a familiar road can bring release if you focus on feeling the contact of the wheels to the pavement through the steering wheel. Listen to the sounds of the engine and the whirr of the gears turning making the car go forward.
I like driving my Jeep because it gives me a great feeling of being in contact with the road. A quieter car does not give me this same feeling of connectedness. I also get this feeling form driving sports cars whose stiff suspension keeps me in touch with the road surface.
It is easy to make driving a spiritual experience. Just focus on the things that are happening right now in the moment. Forget about all the things in the past that you are driving away from. Stop worrying about the potential future that may or may not happen when you get there. Just focus your attention to driving the car right now where you are.
Driving in Southern Snow without Snow Tires.
I live in Tennessee so we rarely get snow. When we do, it is usually not like the snow they get in colder climates. When I worked the Snow*Drift Rally in Michigan, I got to see what driving in real snow was like.
Here we normally get slush. In colder climates, the snow is more powdery and from my experience in Michigan, actually has some traction. The ice however is about the same both places. Except in Michigan, it seemed at times to actually get cold enough for the rubber to stick to the ice. Here, it never does.
In colder climates, they use soft siped tires like Nokians that get great traction in the ice and snow. A set of siped soft compound tires would not last long here as the roads get warm and dry pretty fast.
This morning I woke up to 17 degrees and about 1/2 inch of snow on the driveway. The ground was solidly frozen underneath. This is rare for Tennessee. Normally the ground will still be slushy under the snow.
I actually considered mounting up the Kumho Rally tires to my Jeep, but correctly guessed that the snow would only be on my half mile long dead end road. Once out on the main road the snow was packed to ice. My BFG AT’s get poor traction in snow and ice but the Kumho Rally tires are not much better on ice.
I used the part time setting of my NP 242 transfer case which locks the center differential as I headed down the steep hill of my driveway. The snow and frozen gravel gave plenty of traction. As I made the transition onto pavement, I found it a bit slipperier but still fine.
As I turned off my dead end road onto the secondary road, I found it covered in ice. I could see from the tire tracks in the ditches and from the number of downed signs and mailboxes that it must be pretty slick. I had no trouble accelerating even up hills in Part Time four wheel drive, but I knew stopping would be another matter.
Just before I topped a steep hill, I tested the barking traction and found indeed it was very slick. I was glad I had topped the hill slowly as I saw there were lots of skid marks on the down slope. I am glad I did not meet whoever was trying to get up earlier and left all the marks in the oncoming lane.
One I made it out to the State Highway which had been salted, I found the normal slush and mostly just wet pavement. Here, I switched the NP 242 to Full time opening the center differential. This allows the transfer case to compensate for my unevenly inflated tires and allows cornering without binding.
As I got closer to town, the pavement was mostly dry with occasional slick spots. With the open differential I was able to remain in four wheel drive for added security all the way to my office.
[phpbay]Snow Tire, 10[/phpbay]
Teamwork
Lessons from off the road
Teamwork
One of the most valuable lessons I have learned from the sport of off road driving is teamwork. I have seen many examples of how people working together can accomplish so much more than people competing.
I did not see much if any teamwork in the sport of autocross racing. I guess there is a very good reason why SCCA calls their series Solo racing. It was very much a every man for himself sport. My competitors were very secretive about what tire pressures worked for them and I even heard them give false and misleading information to beginners.
Road rally taught me a little more about team work. There was the interrelationship between the driver and co driver that was critical to the success of a rally team. My navigator, Jeff Ballinger was fantastic at dong the math and complex mental gymnastics necessary to keep us on time and recover from my inevitable mistakes. We worked very well together as evidenced by the trophies in my collection.
Where the teamwork concept failed in Road rally was in the cut throat competition between teams. Often Jeff and I would win a rally on the road and then loose the rally in claims after the event. I saw many teams use complex arguments that were not beneficial to the sport just to win a single event. They caused complex rules to be written and pushed a lot of fun out of the sport for Jeff and me. I suspect the drop in participation in the sport overall may be the result of this win at all cost mentality.
RallyCross and Rally racing taught me a bit more about team work. There seemed to be more a spirit of friendly competition in the events I attended. In the service areas, competing teams shared tools and parts with one another. They swapped driving and navigation tips openly. There was still a spirit of fierce competition, but the winners really only wanted to beat the people who were running at their best. Beating a team with a broken car did not mean as much as winning when the competitor was at his best too.
The sport of off road driving has been a very different experience for me. First of all, it is not competitive. There are no points or trophies, just bragging rights for who got over the rocks. There is a group spirit that wants every one to succeed.
The first thing I observed when I met the group that I go with on the side of a trail at Windrock was the way every one pitched in to help someone fix an electrical problem with his Jeep. Every one there offered tools, advice and spare parts to assist in getting him back on the trail.
Later that day when some one rolled his Jeep, again the group worked together to quickly and safely recover his Jeep from a precarious situation. Back at camp the mood was the same as every one pitched in to make the dinner and campfire circle as pleasant as possible for every one. Including me who they had just met.
On one trail in Ky, there was no real safe way for us to enter the trail. Maybe one or two of our vehicles were capable of climbing the big rock at the entrance, but most were not. Working together we developed a plan to use straps to stabilize the vehicles on an off camber bypass. Each driver had to trust the group and his spotter to keep his truck balanced on the tricky maneuver. Thanks to excellent teamwork, everyone made it onto the trail safely and got to enjoy the trip.
Sadly not everyone who has attended these trips has been a team player. However, when a disruptive element has been introduced, the group leaders have taken action to ensure that those who do not play well with others are not invited back. Such action protects the integrity of the group and makes it more fun for every one.
While the group I normally wheel with has become very close through the years I have observed that compete strangers often work together for the good of all when off road. On one recent trip we met some people who were entering the woods at the same time as us. We banded together. As the day progressed our group grew from four trucks to six or eight as we exited the woods in the dark. We all worked together to tug, winch, spot and guide each other through the challenging conditions.
I have learned far more about teamwork and building a strong working relationship with others from off roading than I ever have in any of the corporate teamwork classes I have attended. Off road, people quickly adapt to the challenge of getting every one through the obstacles. They share resources and skills to make sure every one is successful. Business could learn a lot by taking their work teams off road.
If your business or volunteer organization could benefit by working better together, let me talk to them. I will be happy to share what I have learned off the road to help you improve your organization.
Rally in the Rain
Rally in the Rain
This weekend, I ran the Georgia Sports Car Club May rally. I partnered with Robert Harvey and drove his BMW.
The rally master seemed to have some logistics problems which he explained were a lack of support from his partner. Most evident was the fact that the route instructions were printed on recycled paper. By recycled, I mean form the trash can with stuff written on the other side.
We knew we would have to excuse a mistake or two along the way so we were prepared. Or so we thought.
When Robert arrived at the start, I had already read the general instructions. Traditionally the general instructions have been made available prior to the event so that people could prepare both mentally and equipment wise for the event. This tradition has all but disappeared in the last year or so.
I noticed that bullet point two of the general instructions prohibited the use of our rally computer and gps. Robert had taken time to properly mount both of these the morning of the rally. We had to take time to dismount and properly store them before the rally started.
Our fun started on the odometer calibration leg where we had to turn around twice to read the signs for gimmicks included in the leg. Thanks to Robert’s excellent navigation and math skills were still able to calculate the correction factor for our odometer. At least as best as can be done considering his BMW has a digital dash and I had to just guess how far into each tenth I was.
On leg one we managed to completely miss a turn while getting the gimmick that preceded it. We drove several miles out of our way before turning around and finding it. There we found another rally contestant who had been circling the block for the whole time as the instruction clearly did not work. We tried it a couple of different ways and met back up. Soon all the cars in the rally were sitting together wondering what to do. I had seen one of the referenced road names on our off course loop so I knew which way we need to go. Finally after a few turns, our group got back on the course.
We felt we were doing pretty well until we ran out of instructions and then out of road. As the whole group again gathered we were able to contact the rally master via prohibited cell phone use and learn that he had forgotten to give us the second page of instructions. We all finally made our way to his location to start the next leg.
The next leg was a timed section. Just as I was about to let out the clutch to start the leg, our friend and competitor knocked on our window. Considering what we had just been through, I paused to see what he wanted. He was confirming our start time as he expected to start before us and was assigned a later time. I dashed off; making up the few seconds late quickly in the 25 mph assigned speed. I was a bit confused as the route instructions led us onto the interstate. However the 65mph CAST confirmed it was the right route. Merging into traffic in a driving rain storm I quickly got later and later as Robert quickly punched his calculator. I finally worked my way over to the left lane and with the wipers on their highest setting, started to make up the time. I had us pretty close to right when I had to slow and fight my way back to the right lane for our exit.
At the end of the ramp we found a truck waiting for a safe opening into traffic. We were given a pause but it quickly ticked away before the truck moved. I was about ready to drive around him when he finally decided to go. Just across a bridge, we saw the checkpoint and I was still late. Using all the power of the BMW, I closed the gap as much as possible between the traffic in front of us. I knew we would be close but maybe just a bit late. We got a one!
The final leg of the rally had us looking for signs again. The rain was really coming down hard and visibility was very poor. At one point I had to turn around and get out of the car to read a sign. We finally made it through missing only two signs. By that point we had decided that we were not going back to look for them in these conditions.
When the scores were finally totaled as we ate at a very interesting Greek restaurant, Robert and I had finished first. Not only had we scored very well on the timed leg, we had found more correct answers than any other team.
Our waitress kept asking what trophy she would get. So after it was all over, I peeled off the engraved plaque from the first place trophy and gave the blank trophy to her. She held it high over her head as she ran through the restaurant showing it off to all her co workers. A much better use on the trophy than having it sit in my garage until the next yard sale.
[phpbay]BMW, 5[/phpbay]