Howdy,
On Fri, 1 Sep 2000, Mark Sirota wrote:
> Hence all the old adages... "Just another race." "Don't succumb to
> pressure." "Tune out the distractions." You've heard 'em.
>
> I like to try to remember what Jim Garry reminded me of a few years
> ago at some big event -- "You can't win an event like this without
> taking risks." But maybe even that is too mechanical... Far better
> to just fall into that zone.
I can't relate to this from an autox perspective, but I can from amateur
mc racing. There's very definately a difference between running down the
leader and passing them and pulling away. A _lot_ of people can't win
from the front. Their head gets messed up, they start being careful (or
overcompensate and are reckless), etc.
What I found was that self-confidence helped a huge amount. If you _know_
that you're gonna win and that you're better than all the other folks, you
don't ride/drive overly careful or stiff or whatever. Similarly, if you
have the ability to just not think about stuff (which is helpful in mc
racing for other reasons... :-) you can sorta shut-off the "I can't
believe I'm leading!" thoughts and just ride.
Like I said, I'm not there in autox though, so who the hell knows if it
applies. What do you folks that win all the time at the national level
think about before and during your runs?
Mark
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