Its funny. Racing seems faster from the sidelines, than inside the pack.
Time must undergo some weird shift that allows some odd focus of people and events because even in tight crits, everything seems to happen relatively slow for me.
I chuckle as I type this. One of our local races is at a real race track, on which I have also raced cars and m/cs. Bombing into a corner at 30 vs. 130 can seem about the same amount of risk/drama.
I justify it because aside from boxing (which I am done with), there is no bigger rush than the straight up head to head physical competition of bike racing. The combination of mental / physical chanllenge comes from nowhere else in life. Its what humans were meant to do, but this world has become so pussified, there are few outlets.
-Z