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Words by Scott Rybarik
Legacy
I’ve just finished a book, and it was just in time. I watched elements of the book play out before my eyes as I was winding down the chapters, and it was amazing to me how much of this I’ve been seeing, and doing, already for years.
This story isn’t about me, though, it is about people who are building and leaving a legacy of their own. We’ll start with the book.
You’ll be surprised to learn that the title of the book is “Legacy” and it’s by an author named James Kerr. A little more than 10 years ago James dove deep into the amazing success of a New Zealand rugby team called the “All Blacks”, arguably the best sports team in history. If you are on the All Blacks today, every time you step onto the field you stand a nearly 77% chance of winning. This kind of record is not the product of luck, or accident, it’s the culmination of an ethos and a culture that demands excellence. If you happen to be the All Blacks best player, at the end of practice you stay back and help sweep up the floors in the locker room. They live with mantras like “Do Extra”, “ No Dickheads”, “Aim for the Gap”, “Be a Good Ancestor”, and “Sweep the Shed”. Most of these are self-explanatory, but let’s explore some of them a little more closely.
Don’t be a dickhead – there is no individual who is more important than the team. In the book Kerr says: “There’s no room for dickheads, and plenty of room for humanity.” This is not an excuse for the coach or teammates to be easy on a player who isn’t meeting expectations, in fact it’s just the opposite. When that player is flailing, leaders create conditions where that person can grow and thrive, even though entropy is suggesting, in fact pulling, strongly the other direction.
Aim for the gap – It’s easy, and fun, for us to do the things we’re good at, but that is not how excellence is created. Instead we have to prioritize working on the things that we are not good at. Identify our gaps, and aim squarely at them. Make our own weaknesses as individuals, team members, and teams less weak. In doing so we get ever closer to excellence.
Be a good ancestor – In the All Blacks culture they say that it’s important to leave the jersey in a better place. All Blacks players do not own their jerseys, they just occupy them for a period of time. While you wear that jersey it’s your job to continue the legacy, and when you get the chance, improve it.
For 4 years, from 2016-2020 I was elected to run the UtahSBA, a motorcycle racing club in Utah that used the Utah Motorsports Campus (formerly Miller Motorsports Park) to run events. In the years since I’ve left the leadership of the club has turned over a couple of times, and this past weekend they invited me to come and help by training their new race director. The race director is the person, ultimately, in charge of what happens on the race weekend. I ran the program on day one, and the new director, with me advising, ran the program on day two. There were lots of changes to start this year. For the past couple of years the club has been operating on a one-day schedule, something they adopted during COVID. The leadership of the club, at that time, was smart to do this, and they put the present-day leaders in an excellent position to take some risks, expanding back to a two-day schedule, and radically changing the class structure. To add to this the facility has three racing configurations, but one of them was not useable in 2023 due to degradation of some of the safety equipment that helps protect riders when they fall. The club, along with its members, partners, and affiliated organizations, united in a massive fundraising campaign to facilitate this achievement. Consequently, the East Course at UMC welcomed motorcycles back for the first time in over a year this weekend. The endeavor involves a significant learning curve and presents numerous challenges along the way, making it a far-from-easy feat. Most of the current leaders don’t have many reps, yet, but they are strong and willing to try to do hard things. In endeavoring to do hard things, sometimes we get in there knowing that it’s hard, and we’re prepared for the grind because we know the outcome is worth it. Other times, the realization that it’s hard comes after you’ve committed. This weekend was full of both.
The club’s new race schedule is demanding. Demanding on the racers, demanding on the leaders of the club, demanding on the equipment. Lots happened, but here’s the thing I saw that both most impressed me, and most disappointed me.
The weather on day two sucked. It was wet, it was cold, it was miserable. The race day was canceled early due to the weather, and that is when the real work began. As I was cleaning up race control I looked out and saw a handful of people, a pickup truck, and a flat-bed trailer taking down the newly acquired safety barriers, called AirFence. AirFence is a wonderful product, and the club partnered with the Roadracing World Action Fund, a non-profit dedicated to rider safety, to acquire enough to make the East Course at UMC usable again. Each section is approximately 8 feet long, 3 feet deep, and 4 feet tall, and it’s a carefully engineered product that absorbs impact when positioned against fixed barriers. It’s like an airbag in a car, but it’s always “inflated”. These barriers have to be taken down, and put away, at the end of racing for a couple of reasons. One is that they are engineered to protect human bodies, not vehicles, so leaving them installed puts these expensive barriers at risk for damage during days that cars use the racetrack instead of motorcycles. The second is that the life of these barriers is greatly increased by keeping them out of the weather. One of the club’s partners, Apex Trackdays, helped in this effort by purchasing shipping containers to store the AirFence in when it wasn’t in use. Apologies for the slight detour there, back to my original point, and that is both the most inspiring and the most disappointing part of the weekend, from my perspective.
It was wet, it was cold, it was miserable. No one wanted to be there anymore, and the leadership of the club absolutely asked the membership for help taking the AirFence down, and almost no one showed up. At the end of the day the club President, Vice President, and a handful of other key people, the people who already put in all of the work, were the ones out there taking down the AirFence, and putting it away. The same people who were there at 6 AM both days making sure that racing would go off on time.
Club racing exists because people will it into existence. There is nothing logical about it. A group of people spend untold sums of money, and time, and energy in the pursuit of arriving back, exactly where they started, in the shortest period of time possible. There isn’t any profit in it – the club officials get paid in race entry fees, race entries that many of them don’t get to use. They do this because they love the sport, and they love the people that participate in this sport. As participants we cannot continue to ask everything of them, We too, have to “sweep the sheds”. We too, have to “leave the jersey in a better place”.
I was disappointed that so many people looked around and said, “Well, I guess someone else will do it, I can leave. I’ll help on another day.”
I was inspired to see the club’s leadership so committed. They are creating a legacy that’s worth leaving.
You can learn more about the organizations mentioned in this piece by following here:
The Utah Sportbike Association
Apex Trackdays
The Roadracing World Action Fund
https://www.roadracingworld.com/actionfund
And you can find the book “Legacy” here
Well said and an important lesson in more ways than one.
Thank you Christopher –
I appreciate that you took the time to read and comment, and I hope this finds you exceedingly well
-sr
Great job! Thank you for sharing this message. A great reminder for all of us to be a part of making life better in every aspect.
Don’t be a dickhead and help fold up the air fence! In the CMRA we have volunteers to do this job at the end of the weekend. Cleaning up tires, fuel cans, and trash is critical to going back and being welcomed to the race track.