Drive Team Chemistry

[Vupa]

Hello all,

Seeing as the official season has come to a close I would like to bring up the age old topic that is the "drive team". I've read through a thousand and one threads regarding selection of drive team and they all mention that there needs to be good chemistry, they need to want it, competitiveness, competence, etc.

For the most part our team has always had outstanding drivers, yet as the team's 4th year comes to an end we found ourselves lacking in this department due to our senior drive team members graduating last season. This is where the problem starts, with the selection of a basically all new drive team this season, we found ourselves faced with multiple challenges concerning driving that we were ill-equipped to face. We would love to hear any advice on the following "issues".

Number one: Our drive team members have absolutely no chemistry together, they do not dislike each other, but for the most part are not friends. They simply seem to be on separate wavelengths, making communication more difficult.

Number two: The drivers are uncomfortable around the drive coach. This goes back to the lack of chemistry, the main driver often does not feel confident in the drive coach's decisions, but the operator who is fairly meek, becomes torn between two people telling her different things, this led to quite a few mishaps during the season.

Number three: For champs we switched out drive coach due to the issue present in number two. We found ourselves without anyone seemingly qualified to coach that will be around for several years. Personally I believe that having a drive coach is essential for communication and not having someone who can stay and learn from year to year is detrimental.

Number four: The operator is not seemingly competitive and becomes stressed easily affecting her overall performance. She also needs quite a bit of reinforcement and directions during matches. The main driver who is not the "directing" type does not pair evenly with the operator or the drive coach, leading to a lot of miscommunication.

Number five: When there are no other seemingly "qualified" members among the team for driver, but the current drive team chemistry does not work, is it better to choose the next best option or to continue with the current drivers. Assuming that practice has not started.

Those are the main issues that have seemed to permeate the drive team throughout the season. I would like to point out that this is in no way a personal jab at the driver's abilities or competency, as I believe anyone can get better with enough practice, but more an inquiry on how to improve drive team chemistry for next season.

Completely open to all constructive answers, including those that consist of "replace the entire drive team" as long as a proper explanation is given.

Thanks!