Why the need to race?

1-Because it's the best way to prove that the team has designed the best machine (whatever car, sail boat, motorboat, etc...) No sterile discussion about techniques, let's make a regatta and we shall see which boat is the best. That's more about brains.
2-At personal level: the delicious surge of the adrenalin and astonishment of survival while making a high risk sport. It's so addictive that even the accidents, broken bones and hospitals do not stop the pursuit of this feeling of being fully and highly alive on the razor edge of death.
I raced several years in horse cross country and steeple chase. Gosh it was so good. I stopped only because my horse went to retirement. Not because of the 14 broken bones in 12 years of horse racing at amateur level...

 

"When the green flag drops, the ******** stops"....written on my drag bike.....just about says it all I reckon.

 

I never was very up on my Greek mythology, but if memory serves me a "cave man" would be considerably older then a troglodyte. I believe they were a "supposed" people, south of of the Sinai desert, with possible references of them in biblical texts.

 

A troglodyte lives in a house carved in the rock, like some now in Greece, or in France in the Loire Valley.
The Nabateans were people living at Petra in actual Jordany. The houses and monuments were carved in the stone, with a very sophisticated hydraulic system to keep the water.
Caveman were people using caves as shelter. The term covers a lot of different human groups as Neanderthal.

 

Don't worry, history is told on YouTube nowadays . . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlRXQEA0yj0



Cheers,
Angel

 

Just because I am competitive, I looked up the true meaning of the word "troglodyte " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodytae

"The Troglodytae (Greek: Τρωγλοδῦται) or Troglodyti (literally "cave goers"), were a people mentioned in various locations by many ancient Greek and Roman geographers and historians including Agatharcides, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus, etc."


Do I win ??

 

YES! You get the glory, I can post you a trophy........ to put on the shelf..... to remind you of this success.

All the best & congrats from Jeff.

 

YES!!! with the chocolate medal covered of gold paper and the kiss of the mayor's wife (65 years old and moustaches) and our consideration.

 

The word is pure troglodytai GREEK and I'm glad some of you know GREEK MYTHOLOGY and by extension GREEK HISTORY

 

....so is a modern troglodytai a Geek.....

 

Why do you ask you have a problem;

 

Getting all philosophical now, the desire to 'win' or do better than others, can have many sources.

We all recognize in others, when they need their ego's supported (luckily, we never have that problem)

or

You get sick and tired of having to do some pointless thing over and over again ( like slicing bread)

or

you just want to know if that inspirational idea will actually work.

The ultimate 'competition' is war - we wouldn't have the modern lifestyle we enjoy now without world war II. Shame it created such a huge amount of human suffering.

 

The competitive streak runs deep in mankind. I spent six months in the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, in a rack next to a Marine who'd been blown up by a grenade. And I'll tell you how ingrained the urge to beat your buddy is...

One day they had the ward blocked off for some reason, so we decided to bail out the side door, which was essentially a fire escape. Of course, we're talking WWII wood buildings, on foundations several feet tall because the ward was built out above a slope. So out that door we went in our big wicker wheelchairs, each about the size of a good poolside lounge, with our legs propped out in front of us. There was a porch, and a wide ramp leading down, down, down. We started inching down it side by side, with me hanging onto the right rail and him the left one. He noticed he was a little behind, so he sped up a little. Of course I couldn't let him get away with beating me, so I sped up a little....

We wound up in a tangled mess of limbs and wheelchairs at the bottom of the ramp, and no one could hear us. We were there baking in the sun for what seemed like all day but was probably twenty or thirty minutes, before someone told Odie the Corpsman, "hey, dude. Did you know you have a couple of patients lying in a heap at the bottom of your side ramp?"

Odie came out and tried to untangle us, but couldn't do it solo; he had to call for help. "I should have just left you two idiots there" were the kindest words out of his mouth the rest of the day.