-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Winchell <Jeff@WINCHELL.COM>
To: Linnhoff, Eric <elinnhoff@smmc.saint-lukes.org>; autox@autox.team.net
<autox@autox.team.net>
Date: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 2:22 PM
Subject: RE: Letter to SEB / ESP
>More specifically to your comment, a different way to interpret the same
>events is that the person who chose not to go to nationals due to the ESP
>classing is someone objective rather than childish, and they objectively
>calculated that the benefits were outweighed by the costs. Business does
>that every day.
That is a fairly reasonable statement. The main problem I find with it is
that for the great majority of us, this ain't business. It's something we do
for the fun of it. And the fun is found as much in just driving your car as
fast as its setup and your skill level will take it, and then being with
your buds and lying about how much faster you really were. If winning is a
requirement for you to have fun, maybe a pastime where you have at least a
1-in-2 chance of winning, like checkers, is where you want to be.
I just got the Dixie Digest newsletter (Dixie Region) and read in it the
adventures of Karl Rickert and J.D. Kemp at Nationals this year -- our DTNs
of the past two years sharing Rickert's '74 Alfa Spider "Alfie" (10 years
older than any other car in the class 'cept the 240Z that was two places
ahead of J.D.) -- they placed 34th and DFL in a 54-car class. Alfie was
decidedly uncompetitive in CS at this level and they went in the full
knowledge of that.
When you read their reports you know they had as much fun as any trophy
winner.
It amuses me that Roger-the-Famous is so hard on the anti-M3 side of ths
argument as I have so often heard him say that -- using this year's
numbers -- only 60 people can go home champion so there must be some reason
for the other 1013 people to come. "I can't win so why bother" does NOT seem
to be a compelling reason keeping people away. It is that very sportsmanlike
outlook that is part of what makes Solo II such an appealing sport.
Rocky Entriken
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