Many years ago, we had one of our wettest years ever................it rained for all 8 races that season (current set up is not optimal for the rain but the previous set up was). Normally in a 36 car field with several classes I'd run between 17th to 25th on average. At one particular event I was as high as 5th overall and getting ready to take 4th, the rain stopped and within 8 laps I fell al the ways back to 21st. Think of it this way in a 1/4 mile drag a 1200 would give up 3 seconds to a Z car, so with a 1/8 mile straight you give up 1.5 seconds each and every lap, so after 10 laps your 15 seconds behind...............you claw back some of that with corner speed but not all of it. The rain makes it hard to use all the horsepower, also small bore cars have less torque and are less likely to break the tires loose.............add in the advantages under braking and cornering and the bigger cars struggle.

Now as for being calm....................simply put focus on hitting your marks. Generally it's the person who makes fewer bobbles that turns in better times...............focus on racing the track. If I have someone close to me on time and we're dicing pretty heavy I'll shamelessly offer them an open at a spot that is less then optimal (I'm more apt to do this while racing the bike) , if they take the bait it results in them getting a lousy drive off the corner. The big thing is you need to work all this out before the actual race. After the first couple of laps in qualifying I start playing around with oddball lines...............can you drive around the outside of a corner and beat someone to the next run in point, it may kill your lap but the other car will end up stuck behind you , conversely if you let someone get a run around the outside of a corner will this force them onto a really bad line for the next corner that costs them several car lengths..............giving you breathing room to build up a cushion................amateur racers usually over drive the car trying to come from behind. Why do I mention all this, because if you focus on hitting your marks you'll open pick up 1/2 car length on every lap. This is what you dominant drivers in any series, they focus on the track, which in turn makes you work on you're car set up.

Basically pretend the other cars are not there.

Tom