I used to listen to my walkman, seclude myself from most everyone and go through the sequence in my mind. This anti-social action also yielded a lot of comments, mostly bad It did work to help put me at ease. The more contests I've flown in have reduced the need to do this.

As far as equipment, over the years I have had to deal with more "crap" with equipment than most have from an engine not running as well as others to knowing my plane would die after the spin, making exitting the box and landing the proper way quite a challenge, as it was going to be dead stick. In Temple 4 weeks ago, I almost lost my plane due to and Elvator problem during the sunday morning practice flight, was able to land, then diagnose the problem and still won the first round that day. There has to be a way to seperate what has happened to how we can fly under duress. 2 contests last year, my engine crapped out on the last practice flight of the day, so had to hurredely put in a new engine, set the throttle curve/linkage best I could, then fly truely fly the plane because the throttle was all goofy compared to the previous engine.

Being prepared, score sheets, starter, call sheet are all very important I think.

Then, FUN FUN FUN.

Ed