As the thread turns:
jon e prevo sez:
> Erik, I don't remember who posted the excerpt you sent with you message,
That would be me.
> What I don't
> understand is what makes people like him think they can tell me or anyone
> else,"I have no ambition so you shouldn't have any either."
In turn, what I don't understand is where that came from. It wasn't in
my post. Nothing like it was even implied in there. So maybe I should
try to clear this up.
There's a difference between ambition and competitive level. One has to
precede the other, but they are not the same. My main point in the
original post which you might have missed in all the traffic here is
that if you're not at some sort of reasonable competitive level, don't
go clog up the day at an NT event. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ever be
there, or should not even want to be. It means that if you have the
ambition to be at that level, then get there. Run regionals. When you're
winning regionals, or at least in the hunt among stiff competition, then
try divisionals. If you're not looking like a toad there, then sign up
for a National Tour and go for it.
Stating that you should be reasonably equipped and able to compete at
the level of the game in national level events at no point ever
translates to "I have no ambition so you shouldn't have any either". If
you're aiming for national trophies, have at it. Good luck to you, learn
from everybody and everything and have fun on the way.
As I mentioned in my post, I'm fortunate to run with a region with an
embarrassment of riches in the solo2 driver department. If I want to
know what it's like to run with the national level kids, well, I've done
that in HS for the last three years, it just happens to have always been
at regional events. Lining up with Jack Burns, Scott Hearne, and Rick
McDaniel in front of you and behind you in grid will pretty much
calibrate your brain in that experience. They just happened to be
regional events, with a population level that meant I wasn't just
getting in the way. Maybe all that colors my thinking. But I still think
that among a crowd of people who are very serious about how much they
are putting into their efforts in this sport, you should have some
justification for being there.
You're right, I'm not ambitious. I do approach the events I run
seriously. I try my very best at all times to meet the challenge of
getting the best times possible out of my funky econobox on street
tires. So I might be six seconds slower than Jack and Scott. Oh well.
The circumstances and ambitions in my life do not include putting
anything more into this stuff other than keeping together a decently
maintained fun and practical daily driver on street tires and having
some motorsports fun with it. If I get ambitious in this department, I'm
going road racing. All said, no, I have no business showing up at an NT
just for giggles, and IMHO neither does anybody else with circumstances
similar to mine.
A scenario somewhere else along the spectrum is the guy who shows up at
some regionals with what should be a very quick car. He runs, thrashes
around the course for the day's runs, and when you look at the overall
times later it turns out that they were slower than some guy in an old
econobox on crappy tires (guess who? :-). That guy also has no business
showing up at an NT. Regionals, great. That's the place to learn and get
quicker.
Erik Van-der-Mey jumps in and sayeth:
> All this banter about who is qualified and who is not is ignoring the
> issue of event math. The more entrants, the longer the day gets
> (running only one course). Event limits should be based on first
> come, first served. If you register too late, too bad.
Actually, Erik, that's the root of it, for my thinking. At some point
it's just too damn many people. We have different opinions on the
solutions, but you and I are looking at the same issue.
Phil in the wilderness cried out:
> I saw several car/driver combos that were severely out of
> their depth. The drivers seemed to having a good time, and I don't see
> there is a thing wrong with that. This is not road-racing. The slow guy
> does not endanger anybody.
Well, yeah. No doubt. Let them have fun at regionals and have fun
battling guys like me. There's a place for all of us. (Although as a
side note on endangerment, I have, at least a couple times in the past,
called in on the radio to ask to have a safety steward go over and sit
on somebody for a minute after it appeared that their brain might have
fallen out of the helmet and gotten lodged in the pedals.)
To Mike B. and some others, I should specify that I wasn't thinking of
the Nationals in Topeka when I wrote earlier. That's kind of a different
deal, I think. Sort of a big gathering of the tribe and car party as
much as anything, and they PLAN for huge mobs. They apparently WANT huge
mobs. Hey, anybody and everybody, go for it and have fun. I doubt you'll
see me there, but don't let me discourage you from going! I was only
talking about the national tour.
Last note to DG. I'm kind of sorry that I said what I said before. I
still think you ARE just a touch delusional (:-), but maybe I should
have kept it to myself. If anybody could do it, you probably could, and
I hope you do. Start putting together that TV package and talking to
Speedvision. Start by forgetting about doing it with that stupid ProSolo
format, please.
(Look! It's a christmas tree drag racing start! It's exciting, isn't it?
Look! There are two cars, you see, and they're on different courses, but
they're side by side, you see, so it's like they're racing! Isn't it
exciting? Get it? See? It's like they're racing, right? Yes, it means
that we have two courses that are a lot smaller than the one big course
that we could have and that the participants and you the home viewer
could become familiar with a little easier, but, you see, it's like
they're racing!) (psst...hey, has anybody ever noticed that downhill
skiing is kind of cool to watch on TV, even though there isn't another
guy flying down the hill nearby?)
Oh, geez. Now I've done it.
OK, so, when the "did you read that? he said bad things about ProSolo!
the impudent swine!" fur starts flying, please start a new subject line,
eh?
If you want to come up to me and swing blunt objects while screaming
"you said I'm bad! you said I couldn't go to nationals! you are a bad
man, you are a very bad man!", go to Fostoria this weekend. Look for the
STS grid lineup, then walk through the STS grid among the slammed and
painted Hondas and Acuras and DSMs until you find that you're stopped,
pointing and giggling and saying "what the HELL is THAT doing here!".
You found me. Howdy! Try not to get stray tar and feathers on the red
Integra if it's nearby. It looks really cool, and the Fesslers have put
a lot of work into it. They'd like to keep it in good shape for
Nationals.
JLE
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