Describing types of Technical Problems

A race is not just a test of speed, but the ultimate test of reliability. There’s an old saying “to
finish first, first you must finish”, and it’s especially true in endurance racing. You’re not just
competing against rival teams, you’re also fighting what you could call engineering enemies, which
can cause parts of the car to fail, things like heat, pressure, vibration, shocks, abrasion. There’s
continual stress on almost all the components, all the nuts and bolts on the car. The chassis, engine,
gearbox and clutch, suspension, breakers, tyres, wings, cooling systems have to cope with
phenomenal levels of wear and tear.
Just to give you examples of the types of technical problems we’ve had so far at this test. On
one of the cars, a nut worked loose on a radiator pipe, which resulted in coolant liquid leaking out.
That caused the engine to start overheating. Fortunately, the driver saw the warning light come on,
and he switched off before the system had run out of coolant. Then on the other car we had a fuel
feed problem. The engine cut out on one of the corners. That caused the driver to spin off. We were
fortunate, he didn’t hit anything. But when the car goes off the circuit, the openings in the side pods
always clog up with dirt. So those had to be cleaned out. Obviously, you don’t want anything
blocking the airflow to the radiators. And then because of the spin, the rubber was flat spotted. The
tyres weren’t close to wearing out, but they still had to be changed, because of the flat spots. And
then while they were putting the wheels black on after that, they had a wheel nut jam, it wouldn’t
turn. And that’s actually how problems tend to happen very often. You get a kind of chain of events,
when you feel that everything’s going against you. Having said that, you could also say we were
lucky. Fortunately, the radiator problem didn’t cause the engine blow up. And after the spin, luckily
he didn’t hit the barriers and bend the suspension or snap it completely. And even more fortunately,
it didn’t crack the tub-the chassis.

Exercises

a. Based on the first paragraph

1. What saying emphasis the important of reliability?
 There’s an old saying “to finish first, first you must finish”, and it’s especially
true in endurance racing.
2. What expression refers to things that can cause failures?
 which can cause parts of the car to fail, things like heat, pressure, vibration,
shocks, abrasion.
3. What expression describes damage caused by normal use?
 There’s continual stress on almost all the components, all the nuts and bolts
on the car.
4. heat  high temperatures
5. pressure  loads from expanding gases or liquids
6. vibration continuous high-frequency movement or shaking
7. shock  sudden impact
8. abrassion  damage to surfaces caused by friction
9. Suggest which engineering enemies can be the most problematic for each of the
following car parts.
a. chassis b. engine c. gearbox and clutch d. suspension e. brakes
f. tyres g. wings h. cooling system i. nuts and bolts
b. Based on the second paragraph talking about some technical problems the team have had at
the test, mark the following statements True (T) or False (F)
1. Some liquid was lost from a pipe. (T)
2. A car lost all its coolant with the engine still running. (T)
3. A car’s engine stopped on the circuit. (F)
4. Some tyres were damaged. (T)
5. A wheel nut fell off a car on the circuit. (T)
6. A car’s suspension was broken. (F)