Apache::RequestRec outside of handler?

[Jonathan Vanasco]

is it possible to get a RequestRec outside of the handler?
i've never had to do this before- i checked the docs, but there's  
actually no info on RequestRec in regards to instantiating a new object

so I just tried my $r= Apache2::RequestRec->new(), and i segfaulted

i figure there's something that i'm missing - this seems like a  
routine task someone else would have encountered before