Bone head mistakes

[Kevin Panzino]

Only sure fire way is to have a checklist.

For 99.9999999999999999999999999% of the time, your flight gets you to your destination safely, your lights at home are on, and your military is as effective as it is from the use and rigid adherence to checklists.

Make a short one with all the key actions, and tape it to the dashboard. Make it a point to use it every time. It would have caught your miss.

[Dave Muller]

Originally Posted by Kevin Panzino

Only sure fire way is to have a checklist.

For 99.9999999999999999999999999% of the time, your flight gets you to your destination safely, your lights at home are on, and your military is as effective as it is from the use and rigid adherence to checklists.

Make a short one with all the key actions, and tape it to the dashboard. Make it a point to use it every time. It would have caught your miss.

A note on the dash can make a difference alright. In the early 80s I switched from a forward to reverse valve body without missing a beat. But I was young back then.

25 years later, after more than a decade away from racing, I made the same change and repeatedly shifted from first into neutral, losing a couple of first round races in the process.

I solved it by taping a sizable note to the tach that said simply "PULL!" to remind myself to pull the shift lever back rather than push it forward.

I may have looked stupid with that note there but I never missed the shift again.

[J Slane]

Talk about a bonehead move, the points race before the Gators all my time runs were 10:38, got the stage in first round and I wrote down on the window 10:32,I was having a knee replacement the next week and that's all I was thinking about, lesson learned focus focus focus...Jay

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Kevin Panzino

Only sure fire way is to have a checklist.

For 99.9999999999999999999999999% of the time, your flight gets you to your destination safely, your lights at home are on, and your military is as effective as it is from the use and rigid adherence to checklists.

Make a short one with all the key actions, and tape it to the dashboard. Make it a point to use it every time. It would have caught your miss.

Like Kevin says, checklists will save you lots of grief!
When I was still at Boeing, there were written checklists or procedures for almost everything.
We even had a doctor that spent time at Boeing learning about checklists so he could apply the same to the surgery room, thus reducing errors during surgeries.
His book, The Checklist Manifesto, became a best seller:

https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Man.../dp/0312430000

http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers...er/i_bca05.pdf

This is an example of a checklist for an airline pilot getting ready to take-off on a Boeing 737-800...

https://flyuk.aero/assets/downloads/...ECKLIST-V2.pdf

[Terry Cain]

One of the best bone head mistakes for me was: I runner-upped in a BIG Super Stock race at a track in KY. Winner paid $2000. RU paid $400. It was an IHRA race. The guy who won could just barely run the index. It was a LONG weekend and me and my partner were tired and wanna to get on the road and home. They (IHRA) was going to check the winner but just the carb. My partner said "hell, ain't no way he can be wrong. He's not running fast enough to be wrong". We load up, hit the road and 3 miles down the road I get a call on the CB to come back to track. HE WAS WRONG. I turned around and head back. Drive straight over to tear down and talk to the official. He said "Sorry, you left the track, we're not going to check you." Well, that cost me $1600

[Jim Cimarolli]

We were all stuck in the mud at Houston one time and I had to park the car up on the pavement quite a ways away from my pit area. Left my battery charger and generator in the trunk of the car for the first round of eliminations. Remember that Bobby Brannon???

[Andys dad]

I use to think I could write a book about 101 ways to loose a drag race - I am way beyond 101.

Not making mistakes is in your DNA or it isn't.

IMHO

[Greg Reimer 7376]

Is that a nice way of saying that some people can't be helped? I knew a wise older Christian pastor who came to that conclusion when the same people over and over made the same mistakes, listened to your advice, and then went out and did the same dumb thing, they can't be helped. I do wonder about some of the DNA that's out there,however.

[Kenny Bomar]

I like all of us have made and are still making the bonehead mistakes but each one I make I do the same thing whether it's a life lesson or racing , I backtrack examine how it happened and change something so it can't happen again. I did the same thing once in a big race, at the time I had an on/ off switch on the rev limiter for the burnout so I wired it in with the line lock so it was on a momentary switch and I don't have to remember to turn it off. When coming out of the burnout I pump the line lock switch off then back on that releases the line lock but then I still have the rev ltr on til I complete the burnout in case I happen to hit some water or something before I let off the gas, been working fine for years and one more way to lose eliminated but I still keep inventing new ways ! Hey keeps the adventure rolling!