Open All Night

The big lesson of this year for me is to never give up on a run.  My fastest run on each course included big mistakes.  In the past, I might have given up on the run, either letting up or just hitting a cone rather than taking emergency action.  Autocross, even at the highest levels, is often an exercise in damage control.  Unlike road racers, we’ve only got 3 shots to get it right, so mistakes are going to be made - dealing with them and limiting the damage is an important skill.  Too often, when they happen, we mentally let down, or just get frustrated and toss the run.  I know in the past I’ve hit cones that I could have avoided just because I was mad about the mistake that put the cone in front of me.

Thus endeth today’s sermonette.

Although, I’m not that pleased with the final result, I was pretty happy with the way the day turned out. (more…)

Well, I’ve tossed away another Nationals. I’m mired in the cheap seats (12th, out of the trophies, about 1.3 seconds back.)

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More exciting Nationals action, and more fun times, although I’m in game mode now, so the drinking and lechery is on hold.  Here’s a quick update on how the local Steel Cities folks fared.
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Morning arrived way too early, and I woke up in one of those still drunk/hungover states.  I had to hustle over to the site because my work assignment is covering the ESP and BSP classes for Sportscar, and of course, they ran in the first heat.  It took some coffee and cigarettes, but I managed to get there in one piece.

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Many apologies for the lack of posts.  I’ve been burning the candle at both ends.  Nationals is always like this for me - I run into people I haven’t seen for a while, I meet new people, there are all sorts of cars I want to watch, extra-curricular activities in the evenings, etc…when you are having so much fun. it’s hard to find the time to write about it all.

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Franson and I slept in and then treated ourselves to breakfast at Denny’s. Today is a pretty relaxed day for those of us running on Thursday/Friday. We are heading over to walk the courses this afternoon - hopefully the crowd will thin out in the middle of the day.

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