On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 20:22:36 -0400, "adam popp" <raft321@fuse.net> pounded the
keys thusly:
>>>>Hello everyone. Since some classes had to run in the rain Thursday at the
>nationals and at a local event yesterday some of us drivers had to run in the
>rain. I have to ask a couple questions to you guys in which, how many people
>really enjoy autocrossing in the rain, and what about if we came up with a
>rule that no autocrosses would have racing in the rain and just run in the
>dry?<<<<
I *love* driving in the rain. I don't like working in the rain and I don't
particularly care for all the cleanup I have to do to the car, tools,
equipment, etc. after it rains, but I take care of the former with a suitable
application of rain shoes and a Gore-Tex rain suit, and I take care of the
latter with a Zen-like stoicism, because, as the folks in ESP noted on Friday,
I like to present a clean car. I cleaned and dried the car (removing and
drying magnetics, etc.) between heats at the two Pros I ran this year (Oscoda
and Peru) and at the Peru Tour. Why? Partly because water behind the magnets
can ruin the paint and partly because I like to present a clean car for the
benefit of my sponsors and myself. And because a clean car is a happy car.
But as for not racing in the rain, what do you think we are, Adam, NAPCAR, er,
I mean NASCAR? We're not running on ovals with big concrete walls on the
outside of the turns. We're a sport that's all about precision driving and car
control. What better way to demonstrate car control skills than to run on a
low-friction surface such as wet pavement? That's something I always tell my
students at Detroit Region's annual Solo School when the forecast calls for
rain on the driving day -- which it often does -- and I want to make sure
they'll show up.
And as I said above, I *love* driving in the rain. It's the great equalizer.
I'm (relatively) faster in the rain than in the dry, at least at the current
state of tune of my car and its driver (me).
As a practical matter, if we didn't play in the rain, in many parts of the
country, we wouldn't be able to play at all -- site availability, event
logistics, travel schedules and budgets for our *amateur* sport mean that
postponing an event due to rain (note that I distinguish between this and
stopping an event due to severe weather until said weather passes) would result
in a lot of people spending money for nothing, and participation levels would
drop noticeably and very quickly. It would pretty much kibosh any of the
"travel" events -- Tours, Pros, Nationals, Divisional series such as the MidDiv
and CenDiv series. I, for one, would think twice about spending the vacation
time and travel $$$ to drive a few hundred miles for an event only to be told
it was postponed due to rain and would be rescheduled for, say, the following
weekend.
So let's keep playing in the rain. It's not a bug, it's a feature, a further
part of the challenge of doing well in our sport.
Jim Crider
ESP #65 Mustang Cobra (the one with the numbers you can read in the next county
over)
autojim@despammed.com
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