Double Stacked
April 01, 2023
Virginia International Raceway
Tarheel Ch. BMWCCA SpecE46 Club Race
Driver: Flann Lippincott, Motorsport IP
When starting a business venture involving the topic of ‘intellectual property’ in today’s complex digital environments whilst also starting a professional racing career, the calculation of timing and mental resources must be carefully considered. Consider Formula One Racing Pit-Stops: A requirement for tire changes and any necessary repairs. With lap times fractions of a second apart, the efficiency and time spent in pits is critical. 100% focus and machine-like movements are needed for two-second stop times. A DOUBLE STACK is when it happens with both team cars immediately back to back. Take the utmost of planning, precision and calculated timing and now double it! For an F1 pit crew - nothing is more exposing of hidden errors than a double stack. For a racing driver and a simultaneous entrepreneur, the weekend’s performance is no different.
It’s April Fools' weekend, 2023 and I was invited to come visit Virginia International Raceway where Flann Lippincott was competing in SpecE46 BMW Racing Series with the goal of building racing consistency and strengthening feedback loops between the insights of her coaches and the resultant lap times and in-car telemetry. Flann is simultaneously building an Intellectual Property Teaching business for designers that is visually assisted by her racing development and travels with her racecar across the country. Double-Stacked with business growth ideas and racing-related challenges - my goal was to showcase moments from the weekend that Flann could use to draw metaphors and build a catalog of teaching-worthy moments for a later time.
VIR is flanked by the Shenandoah, Blue Ridge Mountains and the Roanoke Valley with its flatter plains, as well as flatlands to the Eastern side of the state - so VIR sees sudden and momentous fluctuations in temperature and weather shifts. Locals brag, “It rains more than London and Seattle here...” VIR’s 3.27 mile course has an average speed of approx. 87mph. With fast elevation changes, sweeping cambered and off-camber turns, it becomes a treacherous slick track when the rain comes, and it usually dumps fast and heavy!
The altering track topography with large swaths of grassland on each side makes for heavy water runoff crossings. We all spent a lot of bandwidth throughout the day looking at weather maps and observing the skies’ April Foolery. The winds were sharp and biting cold at times, and nonexistent with damp fog at others. Flann was kept preoccupied throughout the day swapping between the Toyo rain tires and the dry slicks. Each 30 minute session had unique conditions. Shocks were adjusted, stabilizer bars removed and re-installed throughout the day. These decisions had to come fast as everyone looked at the skies for answers in the minutes before heading to the grid. Once that commitment time was reached - it's 100% in with the choices made.
The chaos of a rain race start brings a race within the race as yellow flags are imminent and passing choices are expedited. It’s a delicate balance of playing it safe, finding the wet-line, finding the braking thresholds for varying track conditions while taking advantage of others' insecurities.
Racing is intensively a mental sport within its harsh conditions but the deliverables are known: metal, pavement, rubber and the stopwatch. Intellectual Property is extensively a mental sport; an abstract topic, guided by laws, protocols, rulings and past experiences, often arising after the damage is done! The ability to digitally proactively teach it, especially during the time when the world is adapting to A.I. is, in itself, a mental sport as well. It's a daunting task to resolve all the arising issues simultaneously, but as I document piece by piece, the philosophy of ‘Double Stacking’ can work to successfully stitch them together to victory.
- Chris Booth // www.EdgeOfAdhesion.xyz
Photos: Chris Booth
