[Tommy]

I"m happy for you with your new Cobra. It really is a fun car on the road, in the garage or at the gas station. But at the risk of piling on I"ll add one more safety story.

I flew with the Air Force for 20 years and they tracked and recorded every significant aircraft crash. Their data showed that the highest accident rate for pilots was when they had about 1500 hours of flying time. It was widely accepted that less experienced pilots were still wary enough about flying to keep a large safety margin. Much more experienced pilots had learned through surviving close calls that you never get so good you don't need a safety margin. It was the pilots who thought they had it all figured out but really didn't that caused the most accidents. So the moral of the story for lots of things in life including operating a lightweight, short wheelbase, overpowered race car is to remember that even when you think you have everything figured out, you should still leave a safety margin for the things you don't know that you don't know. . . . To paraphrase an old flying adage, the superior driver uses his superior judgement to avoid situations that require his superior skill.