After watching the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, I was able to draw certain similarities between racing and combat:
I am going to use this analogy very loosely, so anyone else that has been in combat - no need to take offense; but I am going to compare racing, such as the 24 Hours of Daytona, to combat. How so you may ask?
For both of them, you will want the following:
A strong team that works well together - this is pretty self explanatory. You can have the fastest driver in the world but if the pit crew or the mechanics are slow or break the car - the race can be lost before it reaches the starting line. In the Military we use a saying: you are only as fast as your slowest teammate, or you are only as strong as your weakest teammate - you get the point.
A strong plan or what military people would refer to as an Operations Order (a plan in order to achieve the Commander's intent). For racing, this would be winning the race. When do we pit, how much fuel to use, changing the tires, and dealing with Murphy's law (contingency plans on things that can and will go wrong) - how will the team respond? If the team is trained for and prepared for things to go wrong, their training will take over and they will just react; however, if they are not prepared for those things, then they may freeze, this also may affect the morale, and the consequences maybe overwhelming.
Execution - you may have the best plan in the world but if you do not execute the plan, then the plan is useless. How do you execute the plan? This is where practice, training, and commitment comes into play. As a leader, you want buy-in from everyone on your team. Meaning, you want everyone to believe in your plan and you want them fully committed to it. In addition, you want everyone to understand everyone else's role in the execution phase. This helps in case you lose someone to injuries, sickness, or whatever.
Murphy's law - Having a contingency plan for Murphy's law - what can go wrong will go wrong. The Porsche GTLM team experienced this before the race even began. At the start of the race, the green flag flew, the poll position drivers, in this case the Corvettes, set the pace, when they accelerate, the rest of the drivers follows suit; however the BMW driver, located behind the Porsche, decided that he would accelerate prior to the rest of the pack accelerating, which caused him to rear-ended the Porsche, this accident caused the Porsche to spin-out and hit the Ferrari that was next to the Porsche. Unfortunately, this damaged the Porsche so bad that it was not able to really recover. On the first lap, the Porsche would lose its rear bumper and have to pit. In the GTD category, the Wright Racing team experienced something similar to this. First, they lost a key driver, Ryan Hardwick. In a few practice runs prior to the race, Ryan was involved in an accident and suffered a concussion. Unfortunately, Ryan was producing some of the team's fastest lap times. During the evening hours of the race, the Wright team experienced another setback, contact with another car, which set them back far enough that they could not recover.
Luck - Unfortunately luck, or in this case, bad luck, tends to play a part of racing as well. Sometimes you have good luck, unexpected things happen to other teams which may workout in your favor, bad for them but good for you; especially, if they are your opponent who is beating you; or you maybe the recipient of bad luck. Either way, you try and learn from it and move forward. My GySgt used to tell me, don't let one mistake turn into two. Meaning, you can't let one mistake get in your head and you lose focus on the mission at hand. There will be time after the mission to go back and conduct an after action report and learn from everything - what you did right and what you did wrong. For me, I have been in some situations where I literally thought, "I am 'lucky' to be alive."
For those of you that have served in combat, thank you for that, and no disrespect intended. I am a Veteran myself and spent 7-years in the Middle East (Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Saudi, etc). I know combat is a game where the losers don't come home. I have the utmost respect for all of our Veterans. After watching the race, I thought there were some similarities to racing that you would find in combat, as I mentioned above. I think you need to have all of these to be successful in both fields.
Mobile 1, 12 Hours of Sebring is set for 20 March 2021. Hopefully, the Porsche teams will have better luck during the next race. I know the teams will be prepped and ready.
Image by - Instagram: @porschepassionist
