Warning: nine-hundred-word rant ahead.
Christina wants to connect with Tony as he toys with his
ring.
.
CHRISTINA
… I remember when my dad designed that…
(an awkward silence)
I guess I’ll have to wear mine on
a chain around my neck, huh?
.
TONY
How ’bout you win one first?
.
CHRISTINA
I was just trying to —
.
TONY
(getting up)
No. Win one first.
.
He walks away. — “Any Given Sunday”
I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say that I was surprised by the way much of the crapcan-racing community has responded to my various articles and comments on “MiataCrashGate”. Presented with a video of two drivers each making potentially deadly mistakes after cruising by an empty flag station, many participants have responded with hamster-wheel rationalizing that would shame Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf.
“His brakes were locked! There was nothing he could do!” This would be a great excuse for why your great-uncle Emmett slid into a mailbox coming home from the company New Year’s Eve party in 1963 but it shouldn’t apply to racing drivers.
“Nobody was hurt!” Well, if you fire a pistol into the air repeatedly while in the middle of Times Square, chances are that nobody will be hurt, but I guarantee you that action will be taken to correct the situation.
“That station doesn’t need to be flagged!” Really? Even when there are one hundred and sixty-eight cars on track, some of which were being steered by untrained novices who had never been on this, or any other, track before?
“You got out of a car that wasn’t on fire!” Yes. It was an unflagged situation. There were cars coming at my door at full speed, making passes for position. And it’s doubly ironic that the loudest bleating about this comes from people who think it’s 100% okay to run into stopped cars at full speed! What the fuck am I supposed to do, sit there until Ferkel can enter a car in the series and ram me in the door from 200 feet out? I’ve sat in cars for an entire NASA race because that was the safest thing to do and there was flag coverage. This was a unique incident and I put the video up because I wanted to raise the level of discussion about flagging in amateur racing.
“You just don’t understand LeMons! You don’t understand racing! You’re an armchair quarterback who criticizes other people from the safety of your desk!” Well now…
The above photo represents some of my best finishes in various race series. I’m not Scott Pruett or Johnny O’Connell but I don’t mind recounting my highlights:
NASA: multiple wins in multiple classes, podiums in others, Mid-Ohio track record, finished 2nd in the 2007 National Championship.
AER: Race win and overall win, fast team lap.
ChumpCar: Overall win, fast team lap. Wish I had the trophy from that race, it was badass.
LeMons: Overall win, fast team lap, fast race lap.
Skip Barber MAZDASPEED Challenge: Two podium finishes in two races, on a new track, against a full field of seasoned participants.
Koni Challenge and B-Spec: Class-competitive times, ran as high as 2nd place before experiencing a mechanical.
I don’t run much Time Trial, but I’ve run more than one PTE event where my fastest lap of the race would also have won Time Trial E. In my sole overseas Time Trial event, I placed second of 17 entrants and was the first American to stand on the podium of Sepang, ever. As an autocrosser, I’ve won more SCCA Regional events than I’ve lost and I PAXed top half at the only Nationals I attended. In 2006 I not only beat every other participant to win the watch at the AMG Challenge in Joliet, I also beat the entire professional staff of the event and Tommy Kendall. Recently, I set the fastest time of the week at a Cadillac customer event at Austin, beating over 150 other drivers. This wouldn’t matter much except that I did it with a broken leg. A few years ago, I drove a stock Shelby GT500 to VIR and set a time that would have been 14th place in that year’s Grassroots Motorsports annual competition. I did it with the radio on and with a passenger in the right seat.
So who cares? Well, it’s only relevant for two reasons. The first is this: while my opinion is hardly infallible when it comes to this or any other subject, it’s not ill-informed when it comes to club-level racing. I’m not sitting at home watching videos and making judgments based on what I’ve read in magazines or learned from playing Need For Speed or something like that. I’ve logged hundreds of hours on track in everything from a 1963 Ford Falcon to a World Challenge McLaren. I’ve been the cause of on-track incidents and I’ve been the innocent victim and I’ve been somewhere in-between. I’ve been suspended from NASA for contact and I’ve beaten an entire field of American-Iron-class Mustangs and the like in a NASA enduro driving a Civic DX, by myself.
The second reason is this: There’s way too much smack being talked by people whose closest exposure to a podium is cheering in front of one. I keep hearing about how easy it is to win in multiple sanctions from people whose only victories came in LeMons Class C. The truth of the matter is that some wins come easy and some losses come hard, but it takes more than luck to win again and again, in different cars, from New Jersey to Northern California. So while I’m not going to say that I’m the best amateur racer out there — far from it — what I am going to do is assert that I am qualified to comment on the subject. If you disagree, then you can start by winning in five different sanctions, and then I’ll listen to you a bit.
Alright. Enough of the rant. Let’s see what Bark and I managed to write this week. Well, Bark has… nothing. I blame that Kimpton lifestyle he leads. How can you get anything written when they keep inviting you to wine tastings and the like?
For TTAC, I had something on smog in Beijing and something about motorcycle taxis in newly-industrialized India. Yes, it was “international week” for me. Not sure why.
At R&T, I had the meanest-spirited article in human history. As a counterpart to that, I wrote a gentle, old-school-style thing about buying motorcycles and preparing for winter. It’s exactly the kind of article that used to appear regularly in the pages of R&T and as far as I can tell it went entirely unread.
This weekend I’ll be sitting down in Charlotte, NC with Gene Haas of Stewart-Haas Racing to discuss his all-new American Formula One team. To say that I’m excited about this would be an understatement. Gene Haas knows a lot more about winning than I do, that’s for sure. The only question is: is there room on any of his teams for drivers who can’t even turn the steering wheel left?
I am minded of an incident I read about many years ago when Pat Bedard, then a C/D scribe, was describing some minor issue in IndyCar when someone with a higher BAC than IQ sidled up to him and questioned his right as a motor-noter to pass such judgment: “And how often have you driven at Indianapolis?”
Said Bedard, accurately: “Twice.”
My father took me to see the second (and last) time. I was a child. It was frightening. I thought Patrick was dead.
Kevin Williamson just happened to quote (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263080/re-websters-kevin-d-williamson) this, from Wm F. Buckley, today:
“Some years ago I was a defendant in a lawsuit brought by a creepy fascistic outfit (they are now out of business), and the question before the jury was whether I and the magazine I edited were racist. The attorney had one weapon to use in making his point, namely that we had published an editorial about Adam Clayton Powell Jr. when he made a terminally wrong move in his defense against federal prosecutors. The editorial we published was titled, “The Jig Is Up for Adam Clayton Powell Jr.?” On the witness stand I argued that the word “jig” could be used other than as animadversion. The feverish lawyer grabbed a book from his table and slammed it down on the arm of my chair. “Have you ever heard of a dictionary?” he asked scornfully, as if he had put the smoking gun in my lap. I examined the American Heritage College Dictionary and said yes, I was familiar with it. “In fact,” I was able to say, opening the book, “I wrote the introduction to this edition.” ”
Originally published in:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/217685/just-what-did-you-mean-william-f-buckley-jr
I apologize for my lack of contribution this week. I wrote an article in which I called three people complete frauds. Upon fact-checking, only two were COMPLETE frauds—the third was only semi-fraudulent. It will run next week.
Shut up Bark. Yer getting yet ass kicked at AMP Monday.
Shame I’ll have to miss that.
Post up the times.
Anything below 70 seconds is laudable, or was before the runoff was extended super far. Take T1 FLAT.
Badass Chumpcar trophy can be seen here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/GregSmith/A62B4FA2-A667-4CB8-B3F4-FD2254D0A97F-366-0000003771EB2593_zps7ae8ed1e.jpg
Jack -
So is this here why you were suspended from NASA?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G-QcJI_UfM
J
No. It was for a much bigger crash with the same driver the following year. They sat us both down for a month and as a result I wound up 2nd in the region instead of as regional champ.
Not in a productive mood tonight, Jack. Put most of my energy into whipping out two large trays of lasagna for my wife, my son and myself. Fortunately my wife likes my lasagna but exercises some restraint, and it shows. My son works out like an NBA’er or NFL’er during the season, and eats accordingly. I fall in the middle. Two large trays last for just a few days…
I did read your motorcycle article, as soon as I learned of its existence. Interesting as always. However, I am going to get to gloat for just one short moment, as I turn on my learned “old journalism school professor” mode.
This is exceedingly nit-picky, but it is a nit, and for the only time that I can recall, I have found a nit in your writing that I can pick. If it was five-thirty outside when you went outside, what time was it inside? 😉
The point being, as a J-school old school prof would say, it was five-thirty inside and outside, at the same time, so there is no reason for saying that it was five-thirty outside. Perhaps you might say that it was five-thirty when you went outside, but to say that it WAS five-thirty when you went outside, leaves the implication that perhaps it was not five-thirty somewhere else.
Like I said, very nit-picky, but you don’t leave much on the table.
Your driving resume is even more impressive than I had imagined that it would be. If I ever take up bank robbery, a la Ryan Gosling in the movie In the Pines, I want you to be my getaway driver.
The ChumpCar trophy is BEYOND bad-ass.
I liked your example of in what sense the two motorcycles might be considered alike.
Your concise rebuttal of the main arguments made “against your safety rant was succinct, but yet totally demolished the backlash brigades complete arsenal of complaints against your position. “Nobody was hurt” rebuttal particularly cuts right through the crap.
I was once considered a better than solid (then) large-sized British bike rider back in the day. But the day I took it out on a large oval track for time trials, and saw how much faster people were zipping by me as if I was pushing a stroller, I knew it was time to get off, and to either take lessons or stay off the track, as I was in way over my head.
At the time I had enough other things going on that I didn’t elect to try to become competitive. But the key point is that it didn’t take much to convince me that as a novice, all I was capable of was to take my life into my own hands, and to risk the lives of other, far better riders than I, in the process.
So it is hard for me to understand and accept why so many of the novice drivers involved think that somehow they are the epitome of speed and driving wisdom.
I made a comment elsewhere that you either haven’t seen, or elected not to reply to.
But I’d be curious to know what, if anything, would be wrong with my response, given that I was in the Nein-11’s shoes…probably don’t know for sure if my right side blind spot is open. Car exiting left is probably far enough out that either I can dodge it, or stop before reaching it. Since time is short, and I don’t have time to weigh a lot of options, I immediately exit left into the weeds, and then start concentrating on staying off the track and out of the other car’s trunk.
Is that a viable strategy, or if not, why not?
Thanks in advance.
And I really don’t care if you want to point out that it was five thirty outside, and want to leave us wondering what time it is elsewhere.
It it was five-the
I plead guilty on the five thirty thing. No excuse.
Shoot me a link to your other comment so I can find it?
Also — yeah, if I’m in the 911 there is NO WAY I don’t go left in that situation. The driver should know what’s to his left. It’s a race. When you’re in a race, you should be able to draw a picture AT ANY TIME of the traffic around you. On the street, however, typically only motorcyclists have that level of attention at all times 🙂
Oops… I meant to say “…to say that it was five-thirty outside leaves…”
Congrats on finding a woman who likes to ride. My wife double checked my life insurance, decided I could ride but like hell if she was ever going to get on one. I think she already has a shopping list made for the payout.
In other news, come to Texas. We ride year-round down here.
Never , _EVER_ stop ranting about safety ! .
I’m old and have seen too many die both on and off the track , one time about 60 seconds after I’d mentioned ” I’d never do that because I’m too young to die ” and got roundly cursed out yet barely one minute later the guy was _dead_ . , not a fun memory .
As Volando said , I thought I was fast until I got on the track , shortly thereafter I got off never to return as I don’t think me being there is safe for others .
It’s interesting as I usually pass 90 % of the local squids when I’m canyon carving .
Anyway , as usual good writing all ’round , some folks simply live to bitch and complain , they’re not important .
I have to go put an illuminated wreath on my Motocycle , I already put one on my car , happy holidays to all who enjoy them .
-Nate
[I’ve finished Sears Point Lemons races on the podium, but never had an outright win.] I’ll defend Jay and crew for the culture of safety they’ve managed to institute, but in this situation it’s … sobering, to say the least, that there was no flagger at the stand in turn 5. Yes, you definitely do need one there, because there’s a hill that obscures the view of track-out when you’re at the turn-in point.
Like most really bad accidents, this one took a concatenation of errors. The Miata driver didn’t need a full weekend of race training to know that he shouldn’t be stopped over a blind hill on the racing surface. Particularly at the entry to Carousel, where multiple legitimate racing lines exist, some passing right through his position.
The driver of the 911 probably did need a lot of practice in the specific situation of steering while panic braking in order to have the muscle memory to retain full control in that situation. I’m a bit more sympathetic to his plight. I had a similar moment coming over the crest of Turn 9 at that same track, and did manage to make the right, but risky, choice, to move left onto the grass. But there should have been a yellow, or even red, flag at station 6, and at least a yellow flag at station 5.