Simply put, the Myth goes something like this:

"There is no way that the Beatles could have done what they did
with only 4 of them. There had to be a Fifth Beatle for them to
accomplish all that they did. A Fifth Beatle that no one knew about
and nobody ever saw, but was still there making things happen
for the four of them."

On a race team, and on most sports teams, there are plenty of
these types of people and jobs. These jobs are just as important
as the ones that share the “Lime-light.”

Below are descriptions of some of these jobs:

“The Truckie”
The Truck Driver tops this list without a doubt. There is the obvious role of getting the race truck to the race track on time and in one piece, of course. On some teams, that is all that a truck driver does.

On many teams though, and especially at the lower levels, a truck driver does many things during a race weekend that if were not done, then the cars would not be on the track. The Truck Driver gets all of the fuel, gets all of the tires mounted, and keeps everything under the awning and inside the truck clean. The Truck Driver knows where to get lots of things and in my experience seems to be the one that knows everybody.

These may seem like small things compared to what the engineer does or what the mechanics do, but without someone taking care of these things, the team would lose efficiency. 

“The DAG”
DAG stands for Data Acquisition Geek. The person who has this role is mostly important to the Engineer. Their job is to download the data from the car after each on track session and setup the software so that the Engineer can look at all of the channels, including shock travel, driver inputs such as throttle application, brake pressure, pitch angles, engine readings, ride height levels, etc. There can be well over 25 channels to look at and sometimes well over 100. This is all then used to debrief with the driver so that adjustments can be made for the next session.

It is also the Dag’s job to make sure that all of the sensors on the racecar are working properly. They will also work with the mechanics to ensure that all sensors, wires and data system issues are resolved.

To Be Continued...