Breathing
Notes from the future : Not much to say here, in 2005 I got pneumonia and couldn’t work on the car for what seemed like ages. The picture is of someone’s mascot and it seemed appropriately sad 🙁
The ability to breathe is the cornerstone to race car preparation, however I’ve never once seen mention of it in any car preparation manuals – not even the venerable Jon Wolfe book gives over a single paragraph to this simple yet, essential, skill.
You may wonder where all this is going, but suffice to say I’ve just spent the last two weeks lying in front of a gently babbling television struggling to breathe. Of course, being a bloke I declined any offers of medical aid, save the odd Lemsip, Marlboro and paracetamol. “Probably just some sort of really virulent cold, ” I told myself, “nothing to worry about here, move along.”
Eventually and under much protestation I was dragged down to A&E and promptly diagnosed, not with SARS as I wheezingly joked to the triage nurse but rather with some kind of pneumonia.
I am now, for the first time in my entire life, taking medical advice and legal pharmaceuticals and suffice to say am feeling much better. However, I’m quite behind on the car preparations and am mentally juggling an ever increasing ‘to do’ list. You’d think with all this technological gimcrackery that I surround myself with I’d have sorted out some half decent system for keeping track of the car, alas this is not the case and probably not the point either, otherwise I’d race Nissans or something.
To confound things further I’ll be in New York for the majority of next week, so there’s not much chance of any progress being made. I really don’t fancy the morning of the track day being the first time I try to start the car.
Anyway, lessons learned:
1. Remember to breathe.
2. Repeat lesson 1.
