Customer Reviews

Prepare to Win

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm building my own, Lotus Seven inspired, sports car.
I've always done my own mechanical maintenance, and have customized my own cars and trucks. That's why I drive 'older' vehicles, with technology I'm comfortable with.
Now, building a high performance, road registered sports car, I'm on a steep learning curve. I've spent a lot on books, and I've learnt that a good book is an investment, and a so-so book is worse than just lack of value for money, it's a liability. I need accurate information. I need to be able to trust my source. And I need to be able to use the information I find to do the right thing the best way,...once.
My kids are going to travel in, maybe even drive this car. I want to sleep easy at night.

Carroll Smith inspires confidence.
He's a professional who has been described as fanatic in his desire to win.
I'm not planning to race; so why would that (understandable) aim of a race-team manager reassure me that his advice is going to make my car safer? It's because his approach is pure logic. His books are structured to introduce the reader to the processes involved in a logical, prioritized order. He shows why it would be pointless to cut expensive metal to build a chassis if you don't have the abilities or the technology to join the bits so they stay joined.
And it's not much good having a car that will go like stink, if you can't be confident it will follow your control inputs to go where you decide and stop where you want it to.
He designs and prepares a car to win by loading the probabilities in his favour. He adds lightness for performance and to de-stress the chassis by decreasing the forces acting on it. He selects the best components available, within the budget, and he doesn't take shortcuts. He ensures that every attachment is the strongest fabricated and installed that is possible. He prepares them to finish, and super-tunes them to finish up front of the field.

In "Prepare to Win", Mr. Smith tells us about the nuts and bolts of technology. He explains why it's no longer necessary to 'nurse' the brakes to prevent fade or rapid wear or drum fracture and lockup. Disc brakes, he advises, properly selected, fitted and maintained, are a simpler, more compact, and more efficient system than drums, and their effectiveness has facilitated many other innovations in race-car technology.
(Imagine the drums required to slow a 300mph F1 car for the chicanes. How big would they be? Where would they fit? Inside the wheel rims? How would the tremendous heat generated be disposed of? What materials would last the distance?)
Carroll tells us why this is all, happily, now irrelevant. He tells why and how you should design and assemble the best braking system you can afford, a system you can rely on when the scenery threatens to re-arrange the body-work. He contends that while better brakes may not increase your top speed, they can assist you to significantly reduce lap times. He treats every system and major component with the same critical attention to detail. You won't find here how to fit the biggest engine to your car. You'll find instead, how to install the engine and all the other systems so they'll complement each other, and keep on working.
A firm believer in "Murphys' Law", he has developed strategies based on experience, hard work and dedication, to deny it any opportunity to interfere with his teams' success.

In this book, he has assembled much of what I need to know to ensure the success of my project. His logical, clearly descriptive text is made even clearer by some of the best illustrations, diagrams and charts you'll see in a lot of book-browsing. I wish I could show them to you here. Brilliant! There is so much here, it defies belief that he has since been able to write four more books on the topic: all equally as riveting, (sorry, it slipped out) informative, and thoroughly entertaining. Buy them, use them, and banish the D.N.F bogey.
If I could have only five books related to my project, two of them would be by Carroll Smith. This is one of them.

Carroll Smith wrote a bunch of great books. This is a not a book. This is a spiral bound pocket reference with thick heavy shiny oil/gas/water/sweat resistant pages. It collects all of the excellent cause and effect tables from Tune To Win. "If your car twists under heavy braking then you have excessive toe out or brake bias or whatever".

There are 16 pages in the Problem->Cause direction and 16 pages in the Cause->Problem direction. Both directions are presented. You switch directions by turning the book around and looking at the back of the pages.

There isn't any new information here. The information that is here is limited to the key summary information from Tune To Win. Just what you need to know at the track. The format is track appropriate.

If you want a quick problem->solution reference at the track, this is it. If you want a book with lots of new information, this is not it.

I'm using this at the track. It's fantastic.

... this book is where it all began, and it is imperative to anyone who calls themselves (or is trying to, for that matter!) a motorsport professional. As Mr. Smith says, there is absolutely no reason for any mechanical failure on a racecar. But improper preperation rob great drives of wins and championships repeatedly because OBVIOUSLY, THE ENGINEER DIDN'T READ THIS BOOK.

Motorsport involves a lot of common sense - like regularly replacing 50c parts that have important functions to the car. Mr. Smith details these parts in this book and in "Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook". Read this one to get the gist, though. AND TAKE IT WITH YOU TO THE TRACK. It may mean the difference between winning and losing a championship, and thus valuable sponsorship dollars...

This book isn't designed to be read at home and stored on a book shelf. It was meant to be kept in your toolbox or the glovebox of your race car. It's size and format make it REALLY easy to help make quick tuning changes at the track. It's a heavy duty and laminated so you can use it with gloves or with greasy hands! I bring it with me everywhere I race! It's a tad bit expensive at $20 but it's worth it and will pay for itself quickly. You won't want to leave home without it!

My husband wanted this and I bought it for him. He loves it. It is a sturdy, well-laminated book that he says he will use a lot.

STOP ripping people off for this book. NEW ones are 20 bucks at SAE.ORG I just bought one. It is a great book w tons of basic info.

Just what I needed to finish off the final phase of assembly of my Vintage 1966 USRRC/CanAm car. Carrol Smith is the man, good practical information. Thanks Amazon for getting me my bible.

This is a really good book.
It provides great insight and the whole 'cause and effect' / 'effect and cause' format is well considered.

The book does not go into vehicle architecture influences. In this respect the book is more of a development tool, rather than a design guide.

I'll sum it up like this: Carroll Smith's "Engineer in Your Pocket" is a 35 page Cliff Notes version of his Tune to Win book. The page size is 3" Wide by 6" tall, so it will actually fit in your pccket. If you are blind, you'll be glad to know that the printed text size is VERY large with lots of white space on all of the pages.

What am I getting at? Well, for a $20 booklet, I expected a little more than what showed up. I'm a big fan of the late Carroll Smith, I own all of his other books, at the very least this piece completed my collection. But the only use this book has is for lining the pockets of Carroll's publishing company with your money.

Save yourself the money, buy Carroll's full size and very complete other works (of which, Engineer to Win is my favorite - and is one of my Top5 auto books ever!). If you are a good note taker, go out and buy yourself a 3x5 spiral bound pocket notebook and take your own notes of the important areas of his other books. There, I've just saved you $20...

I was disappointed that Amazon doesn't have this book and that the used options are ridiculously expensive. With a little digging I found that you can go to Carroll Smith dot com and order it shipped for only 25 bucks.