The Story Behind the DocWob Carbon Fibre Pit Board
Born from the Work Area:
The Story Behind the DocWob Carbon Fibre Pit Board
If you spend long enough in the work area trackside, a pit board stops being a tool and starts being an extension of your arm. For me, that transition happened a very long time ago. Believe me I’ve spent half my life with a pit board in my hand! Half a lifetime of laps, signals, and split-second decisions, and all of that experience fed directly into the creation of the DocWob carbon fibre pit board.
From the Work Area to the Drawing Board
The DocWob pit board didn’t begin with a product meeting or a marketing brief. It began, by request of the Gabriel SS24 KTM team. There are hundreds of pit boards available in the market, but they range from too heavy, too fragile, or just not built for the pace and pressure of a proper race environment. The answer? Build something better. The result is a lightweight, durable carbon fibre board engineered from scratch with real work area use in mind, because the person designing it has been standing in that area longer than most.
The Budd Creek Incident
Of course, half a lifetime as a supercross mechanic also means half a lifetime of stories. And not all of them end perfectly.
Cast my mind back to Budds Creek. Race one had gone well. My rider came home second, a solid result. Race two started and the first lap came around. The board went out: 24th. Second lap: still 24th. Third lap: 24th again. Fourth lap: 24th really!
I’ll be honest, I was getting a bit bored of it. So, on the fifth lap, I wrote exactly what I was thinking on the board:
24 - What the f**k.
By the sixth lap, I’d had enough. Board put down, I turned and started walking back toward the truck. I was halfway there when the radio crackled.
“Your pit board signal was live on TV.”
It wasn’t good - I returned to the work area. My rider, now running 16th , didn’t look at the pit board once for the remainder of the race. He finished somewhere around fifth or sixth (the exact position has mercifully faded with time). What hasn’t faded is the written warning that followed, issued by Suzuki, who made it abundantly clear that the message on that pit board was not the type of image they were looking to portray.
What Makes the DocWob Pit Board Different
The DocWob carbon fibre pit board is built for people who actually use pit boards. Every detail has been thought through by someone who has stood trackside. Each board comes with two white pens, and the text can be wiped off instantly and cleanly, no fuss, no lag, no fumbling mid-race. The boards work perfectly in conjunction with the DocWob mechanics’ gloves, which are also touchscreen-friendly and double up as the ideal wiping cloth. It’s a system designed to work together, because in the heat of the race, everything needs to be seamless.
What’s Coming Next
Watch this space, because we’re currently developing a large version of the pit board in conjunction with the team at Nestaan Husqvarna Factory Racing The full details aren’t quite ready to share yet, but they will be soon. We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, the standard size board is available now, and it’s already doing the rounds with some serious teams. Whether you’re signalling a championship leader or just keeping your rider honest, like everything at DocWob its built for the Pro teams and available to everyone.
