Knowing when you are not the expert is one of the most valuable lessons I have learned when it comes to cars and life in general. Growing up we know it all and do it all. As we get older we tend to understand the world better and one of the key elements is realizing you are not the greatest person in the world. This is especially true when it comes to cars. We work with many talented people. I can't say there is one person that we work with that can do everything though. Each has their own specialty, their own expertise and we work on those particular projects with certain individuals.
Specializing is an important part of business and personal growth. Spreading yourself across the board to attempt to handle every aspect of a race car build for instance will ultimate lead to a poor finished product. There are engine specialists, suspension specialist, chassis specialist, wiring specialists and the list goes on and on. Sure the average mechanic can handle a little bit of all those subjects but to really take your project to the next level working with those specialists will be money well spent. The jack of all trades although a great idea is usually not the best long term solution. The old saying about knowing a little about a lot is what comes to mind here. We run into this issue constantly as we discuss products and projects with customers.
2016 is my 11th year in business on my own and 15th year in the performance parts industry. Over those years I have learned a thing or 2. Whether you want to listen to my advice or not is up to you but the overwhelming trend I see is people being scattered brained on products and projects. They will listen to whoever / whatever is being said at that particular moment in time and believe it to be the truth. Social media has made this short attention span syndrome even worse. Your buddies friends uncles cousin who has never had a race car or run a particular class or 1/4 mile ET is not an expert. There are always more ways than 1 to skin a cat but the real goal in your project should be to stick with 1 main plan. The newest and greatest product that just came out last week is not what you need. Maybe a year from now after you have proven your existing parts are not what you need them to be that last year's newest and greatest will make sense. I would rather see you finish and use your car than wait for this part or that part eternally.
There are a lot of things I am not an expert on and being 36 years old I will freely admit that now. I don't need to know everything about everything. What I do need to know is when to consult and work with those that are the experts in their fields. A great for instance is the CRX PPG Transmission. After 4 years of great results and general maintenance it finally had enough and ate itself alive last time at the track. Could we have cracked it open, inspected and made a good guess at what parts we needed and attempt to put it all back together? Sure, we could of done that. But you know who does transmission work all day every day and we do business with on a daily basis as well? Synchrotech Transmissions. They are great to work with. We boxed the complete, assembled transmission up and sent it out to them and we used their expertise to disassemble, inspect, replace and reassemble. Project done. Need an alignment on a race car? Sure, we could string it but that is not what we are great at...leave it to the experts.
There are hundreds of these examples over the course of a year that I could give you. Strategically using experts when it comes to your projects whether it be for product advise or actual hands on work will go a long way towards creating a great finished product. -- James Innes
