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Getting close to light poles

To: autox@autox.team.net
Subject: Getting close to light poles
From: Karl Shultz <karl.shultz@attglobal.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 18:40:26 -0400
With all this talk of rollovers and cars hitting each other I'd like to
get some input from you all.

Before I continue, a little background.  Some of you may have attended
(or read about in GRM) the Belle Chere street autocross in Asheville,
NC.  Remember GRM writing about some autocross cars finding their way up
onto the curb?  I was driving one of them.  Drove it home, the car
aligns fine.  There have been some (at times expensive) long term issues
related to this but overall I was pretty lucky.

Since that event, I think I've been a little spooked at some
autocrosses.  Coming towards the finish on the left course in
Petersburg, for isntance, there were a couple times when I was a little
scared of hitting the light pole.  Not because I got loose (I did on the
right side), or because the course was too close to it (it wasn't).  It
was just lurking in my mind.  

I worked course and it was fairly obvious that nobody was going to hit
the pole (at least from my perspective).  In looking back at the video
the car was never in danger of hitting the pole.  Yet it was the only
thing I remember thinking about other than "don't redlight" and "do what
Jon Roberts said in the turnaround" (this was not my best weekend of
driving).

Am I being overly sensitive?  If I'm being too sensitive, what can I do
to get my mind back right?  Paradoxically, when I drive on track I don't
worry much about this (although Watkins Glen next week will be a vastly
different story).

Any comments welcome.

-- 
Karl Shultz http://pws.prserv.net/krshultz
No Gum Racing: http://pws.prserv.net/whitney/nogum.html

Black 95 Integra GS-R, STR/DSP #78...attention-getting 
  and fast
Orange 73 MGB...attention-getting and not so fast

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