Been there and yes, the starts look scary when groomed. Outside of races, they rarely are and moguled up they don't seem so steep. IIRC at least, been almost 2 decades since I've been.
When we skied the DH start it was snowing hard and you couldn't really see it that well so no it did not feel scary steep. If it was FIS water infused ice than I don't think I'd want to be there, certainly not on my soft old G3 skis seen in pic 3 posts up.
Thanks for the memories JimK!