Racing sparks and Safety gaps

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Peter Lawrence by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Peter.Lawrence-at-Eng.Sun-dot-com>

Terry,
      I have always observed a connection between my safety gap firing and
cross winding sparks on my secondary (around the middle of the coil as I
have said before).  Is there some explanation for this phenomenon. 

I am hypothesizing that a safety gap firing is a destructive event for
a TC (second only in destructiveness to not having a safety gap!!!). This
is probably when Caps and/or NSTs get blown.

One time I had a grounded wire (house AC ground used as RF ground in this
very low power TC) as a strike point to measure spark length, and every 
time my safety gap fired the grouned wire broke out with corona all along 
its length. Very weird.

-Pete Lawrence.