While the thread ricochets off the walls following the standard team.net
path...
The subject of the thread is not about ME, but then..
jon e "I have email software that generates secret hidden backwards
masking messages when it encounters text more than four paragraphs long"
prevo wrote:
> John, the obvious difference between you and me is that I am slow but
> determined to get fast (and that means exposing myself to all the other
> fast I can and taking every opportunity to try fast and see fast and read
> fast...),...
Obvious? What's obvious? I'm sorry, there is a difference between us?
> but you are quite happy being slow.
Oh. I am? Or were you talking about somebody else? It sure read like you
were addressing me, but then at the same time you seem to be describing
somebody else.
> Maybe you have developed a
> defeatist attitude from having limited funds and such strong local
> talent.
Nah. What I do have is a pretty decent grasp of reality and a good sense
of perspective on where I am and what I'm doing and what I'm working
with. Being at an event Sunday morning not thinking "I'm gonna beat Jack
Burns today!" does not mean I have a defeatist attitude. It just means
I'm not stupid. If I were driving the same thing and thought "I could
never beat Jack Burns" then that might qualify as defeatist.
On the other hand, when people bring econoboxes on street tires and
there is something like equipment that would be sensibly considered in
the same class, I start looking at it as an actual competition, and
chances are fair to good that I'll beat them. That can be kind of fun,
as is finding that I was quicker than some people in MUCH faster cars.
I'm still looking around for that defeatist attitude you're talking
about, it must be here somewhere. Can I get back to you on that?
> I won't try to psychoanalyze you.
Cool, and I won't mention that you were.
> when I line up before Mark Madarash and behind
> Kurt Janish I just don't get that overwhelmed, heartsick feeling of
> impending failure that you seem to be describing in yourself
That's pretty funny. Now I get it. You were being funny, weren't you?
> When I came back on Sunday and ran
> less than 6 seconds behind the class I felt like I had accomplished
> something. _I_ competed on a higher level and _I_ was a winner that day
> because I improved.
This sounds very familiar. I just didn't go through those first steps at
a National Tour event. If you have stout competitors in your regional
events, I don't think you should have either. Obviously we don't agree
on that.
> ...if I continue to make 2 second improvements each
> National Tour day I race, in 2 years I will be at the top of my class.
If you continue to make 2 second improvements every day you run, you,
sir, are a f*ing genius. Really. The reason for saying that is a
phenomenon that maybe (you see, I'm not going to presume here, because I
don't KNOW you) you haven't run into yet. That is that the progress
curve is not linear. It's when you get into the ballpark of where the
car is almost at its max that getting the last few percent get tough.
It's the last few percent before "perfect" that's the tough part that
takes the most doing, in anything, not just autocross. It's what
separates guys like me from people like Burns, Fessler, et al. It's
getting the turn in that little bit smoother. It's developing the feel
for where just one degree more of slip angle in the fronts is too much.
It's developing that sense and understanding of how giving up a tenth of
a second in this corner will gain you a half second three corners later.
If you manage to make two second jumps every time out, good for you.
That will really be doing something.
> You will still be running slow in your region and I am sure you will
> still be comfortable.
Let's see what I'm driving in two years and then we'll talk about it.
Away from jon and back to everybody in general:
Any further editorials on me, personally, as a driver, or my general
state of mind, I'll leave to the NWOR people who read this list, since
they're actually qualified on the subject. They actually know me and see
me run. On the other hand, the NWOR people I know who read this list
tend to have this funny habit. My experience has been that if they post
here, they talk about the ideas and facts at hand and don't decide that
none of that matters because they'd much rather turn the proceedings to
a talk about personalities and psyches of people they don't know. Weird
bastards. What's wrong with them?
Now, let's try to get away from ME as a subject. The only reason I even
wrote anything about me was to give a context to my opinion on the NT
population situation, so everybody understood that the thinking was not
the product of a $200K/year budget royal being.
A possible future topic might be about how there are actually some of us
who aren't deeply concerned about the competition anyway, but are out to
try to run at 10/10, and whatever the results are, are whatever the
results are. Those of us who take the driving seriously (as well as
taking things like working the event seriously), but don't take the
competition seriously past some point are out here and part of this
sport. The semicasual people are out here doing the grassroots thing.
We're not only part of the sport, without us you're going to find huge
sinkholes appearing while you wonder why autocross isn't a feature on
Speedvision on a weekly basis. We might not strike you as important, but
we're the base of the pyramid. If one of The Peasants pipes up, listen.
And the analogy of the pyramid kind of implies that it's shaped like a
pyramid, including different altitudes. As the level goes up, we
shouldn't ALL be there.
Moving on; Mike B. thinks I'm stuffed to the eyeballs with brown stinky
stuff. Hey, if you showed up for your first time in competitive
equipment and beat four of the drivers in your class, then you belong
there.
John Lieberman wrote:
> You're
> lucky, John, that you have some serious competition right there in
> your home region. But many of us don't have any local competition at
> all. Unless we go to Divisionals, National Tours, Pros, or even The
> Big Dance in Topeka, we'll never know..
Yeah. I understand. It's a serious point. It's not that I forget how
fortunate I am in the geography and population here. It sounds to me,
though, like maybe the need to be filled in places where you might have
to go 200 miles to do ANYTHING is to somehow improve the situation at a
divisional level, at least, if not regional.
> Sure, there's some serious competition in this sport. But there's
> also a ton of fun in it. And most of the people who participate are
> great folks to be around.
Yes. Like he said.
> But until you step out of that "local"
> shell and start attending some of the higher-level events ... you're missing
>out
> on an opportunity to meet some really talented people who just might
> be able to help you jump the next hurdle.
No. I'll have that opportunity tomorrow. I get your point, but if I have
that opportunity already, why should I add to the crowd at a NT. The
same for anybody else who has a comparable setting in their region.
OK, I'm out. The situation still stands, where the population at NT
events is just huge. Opinions are divided on how how to solve that, or
whether that is even a problem. You guys decide what you want, if you
can keep it from just degenerating into two diametrically opposed sides
hurling rocks at each other until everybody just gets tired of the whole
thing and eventually something new comes up and it all starts over
again.
Mark Andy summed it up well. Pick a choice.
Steve the Miata Dude spoke up, and naturally, predictably, was greeted
with people slapping him down. (Hey, anybody wonder why most people just
lurk?) Steve was just the sort of guy I was thinking about. Should he
have to deal with a bazillion entries?
JLE
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