Mike McCarville will not have too much spare time on his hands for the next little while.
The Kensington native is the shock specialist for the Dave Reutimann-driven 00 car of Michael Waltrip Racing on NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. McCarville’s immediate priority is the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 20.
“We’ve already started preparing a lot of the stuff for the 2011 season,” said McCarville. “We’ve already done an oil test, and we’ll be changing the oil that we use in the shocks. . . We still have a lot of rebuilding to do before everything is going to be ready to start the season.”
McCarville explained the preparation that is done the week leading up to a race: “We’ll prepare everything that we think we’re going to need for that coming event, and have it all built ahead of time. But we can still change it when we get to the track.
“In our race trailer, I have all the pistons, all the shims and additional shocks I can build into something else.”
After Daytona, the team heads to Phoenix, Ariz., for the following week’s race.
“We will have to work very quickly because the trucks will have to leave that Tuesday to get to Phoenix,” explained McCarville. “Then the following week we’re in Las Vegas, Nev.
“The first three weeks of the 2011 season are going to be a little tight because we don’t have as much time back at the shop after one race until we have to prepare for the next race.”
What happens after each race?
“These races are 400 or 500 miles, and the temperatures in the shocks can reach anywhere over 190 to 200 degrees plus,” explained McCarville. “The oils all need to be changed, the seals, the O-rings and everything else.
“Plus, there’s the wear and tear on the shock itself just from being under race conditions. That is all rebuilt.”
McCarville also carefully diagnoses any changes in the shocks.
“Whether it was heat related, whether it was shock velocity, maybe too much dampening force or not enough dampening force in the shock,” he added.
“There are a lot of aspects we use from the previous week before we even start working towards the next week.
“From there, we’ll sit down with the crew chief and engineer . . . and we’ll talk about what we want to have ready to go, what options we may need to work around.”
Another factor that can often times affect a race is weather.
“We can go to Phoenix, Ariz., thinking it’s going to be decently warm, it may be mid-70s on race day,” noted McCarville.
“But they may have a cold spell and it could be mid-50s.
“We always have to be prepared that this may be something that could cause us a little adjustment when we get to the racetrack. But that’s all handled at the racetrack with all the equipment at our disposal.”
