While it's interesting to watch each days results to see how the piloto and co-piloto are doing it should be equally as important to watch how well the car was set up and prepared and how any problems it might encounter are dealt with. This is as much of a part of the race as the drivers and the cars. The responsibility of the mechanic/s are to build a Frankenstien and then give it life, walk and then run. It's then that the piloto and co-piloto try to teach it how to dance.
A very good friend of mine reminded me of a great quote from one of my favorite works, one which make mention of those men who make it all possible and yet are all too often left standing alone as they wipe off their wrenches and put them neatly back into their perspective places.
"Probably any one of the boys from the Palace Flophouse could have made the truck run, for they were all competent practical mechanics, but Gay was an inspired mechanic.... For there are men who can look, listen, tap, make an adjustment, and a machine works. Indeed there are men near whom a car runs better. And such a one was Gay... He was such a wonder, Gay was--the little mechanic of God, the St. Francis of all things that turn and twist and explode, the St. Francis of coils and
armatures and gears. And if at some time all the heaps of jalopies, cut-down Dusenbergs, Buicks, DeSotos and Plymouths, American Austins and Isotta-Fraschinis praise God in a great chorus--it will be largely due to Gay and his brotherhood."
John Steinbeck.... Cannery Row
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