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You’ve spent numerous hours preparing for you race. You’ve juggled time with your family, kids, friends, school and work. You’ve worked on your setups and strategies, tweaking them, testing and tweaking them again. You’ve spent extra time to learn the newest sim, add-on or track. Lap after lap you’ve pushed yourself to do better than the last race. After all, your hard work is paying off and it’s showing in your results. You can occasionally challenge near the front of the races and the points. Sure you’re no alien, but an improved mid packer that has the odd top 5 or the even more elusive win, both more from luck than skill. Your racing style is friendly. You enjoy close racing. You can hold your own and make few mistakes. You’re the consummate gentleman racer. You head off to the race. It’s 2/3 of the way through the season. A couple more good results could net you a top 5 in points. You hope that lady luck will shine and hand you a top 3 in the race and maybe, just maybe, you can get a top 3 in points if luck really shines. Your qualification goes as planned, no surprises there. Your where you should be with your skills. You get a good start at race time and grab a couple of spots early. You keep it steady and consistent and work your way into the top 5. All is going well. Your hours of practice are really paying off. The checkers will be waving in just a few laps. There is someone behind you, but you’ve been keeping a steady gap so there is nothing to worry about. You start your braking into T1. It’s the same spot you’ve used all race. BAM! You’re out of control , heading into the barrier. BAM! There goes the front end and then the back. Who is that that you see making the turn? Why it’s the person you’ve kept a steady gap to all race. He used you as a braking barrier to make the turn and gain your spot. Your race finished, you wait in chat for an apology…..and wait….nothing. You, the gentleman racer, say nothing in your post race report, because that’s not the place to air dirty laundry. You wait for your inbox to show green with an incoming message from said adversary. Nothing. Alright, you’ll let the event steward sort it out by filing a protest, gentleman racer. You make your points and file. You anxiously await the call of the event steward: “It’s just a racing incident.” You clear your emotions and move on. You move to another series with a different group of racers. You’re here to support your team and are not in it for the personal championship points. You start the race and work your way into 3rd behind your teammate who‘s fighting for the championship. You’re running well and are keeping his nearest competitor at bay. You’re able to hold him off by your speed today, something you haven’t been able to do before. He gets his ego stepped on because you’re faster and you’re not supposed to be faster. You get the bump mid corner and spun off the track. You tell yourself “No worries, you’re here for the team” and finish your race. Again, you wait for any sympathy from the guilty party publicly or privately. Nothing. You did read his post race report where he said it was a pain to drive with all of those annoying slower people around him. You keep quiet, gentleman racer, because “it’s just a racing incident”. You clear your emotions and move on. You try a different series, one you’ve no experience in, and give it a shot. You find yourself in the pointy end of points championship with only three races to go. You’ve gotten off to a good start this race and are running 3rd the entire race, even after pit stops. Your running your race and slowly see 4th and 5th gaining on you slowly. They catch you with 6 laps to go. You see it’s two of your nearest competitors in the points championship. Your nerves and adrenalin are at an all time high. You really concentrate these final laps as they are trying everything to get around you. They are faster, but your running competitively enough to not let them get a run on you. You’ve done well and have held them off 5½ laps. There is only a half a lap left. No problem, you have this one in the bag as there are no passing opportunities on the last part of this track. BAM! You’ve been punted off the track. You regain control of the car and thankfully have no damage. Both competitors get by putting you in 5th. You pass a stopped car along the way later to find out it was 2nd place dropping out. You’ve now lost 2nd place in the race and any advantage in points that would have come with that. Again you wait for an apology or acknowledgement of the incident. Nothing. You, gentleman racer, file a protest with the event steward. You again wait anxiously for the call of the steward. Your confident that the protest is a strong one. The steward responds “it’s just a racing incident”. You clear your emotions and move on. You move on to another series where you know some of the faster drivers make regular appearances. You again practice and train to be competitive with the guys just in case you battle with them. You’ve been doing well in points, so confidence is high. You enter the race and get a great start from 11th. Soon enough, you find yourself running competitively in 4th right behind the leaders and not losing ground. There is a line of higher qualifiers behind you that had issues at the start. You’re ahead of them and not giving any ground. You’ve held them off for a few laps and they’ve got nothing on you. BAM! You’re spinning and stop facing the wrong way. You, gentleman racer, let the field go by and drop from 4th to 22nd, last place. You make the best of what you’ve been dealt. The end of the race comes and you see that you’ve been spun by a respected, faster guy and he finished in your spot, 4th. You do get an apology this time. It places the blame on you for braking when he was accelerating. He didn’t wait for you on track because “it’s just a racing incident”. You don’t clear your emotions. You realize that you’ve been duped. Punting IS allowed, just not on the first lap. Gentleman racer dies.
It was just a racing incident. |
heheh, that's a good one. No matter what race you, gentleman driver, move on to, the one with 22 of the fastest, best drivers in the world, guess what? someone's gonna be the backmarker, someone's gonna make contact with someone else, and that somone else might be you. It happens, here and in real life racing, regularly. We've all been on both sides of the problem as well. Nobody's immune to it. It's a part of the game, both here and in real life. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Of course I'm just being my normal call-it-as-I-see-it self. I'm sure this will garner lot's of hate mail from certain people. Oh well, I can handle, bring it on... (I'm just a rebel rouser) | ||
I feel for you Garret, I really do. Not being snide or an ass (see 1st post), honestly it can be tough.
But far and away most here are good people that I'm glad to have "met". Some are aliens, some are fast, some are average, and some are slow, but what they all have in common is class, decency, and what we can only assume was a good upbringing. After all, this is not real, it's just for fun. Illegitimis non carborundum You are one of the good one's anyone will say, you just need to be happy enough with your own character to laugh at how sad the 2% are and how empty their lives must be. Karma extends out far beyond the virtual walls of a virtual racetrack.
P.S.- Stewarding is hard, it really is. It is difficult to prove intent, even if you know the person may have done it on purpose. Can be a very difficult position to be in. | ||
22 of the world`s greatest sim racers and one of them can`t pass a slower car without taking him out. "I`m sorry" fixes everything. | ||
Garret, as I recognize some of my own experiences in your writing I feel sorry for your wasted time and effort. Fortunately, the balance of the whole is still on the positive side, yes? | ||
I know how you feel Garret. It is really easy to feel you have a target on your car sometimes. I can name a half-dozen others that have recently come to me with this same target-feeling. I do my best to comfort them, but it is not easy. I too have had my share of wearing the target. Sometimes it passes quickly, other times you seem to get stuck with it for a week or two before it moves on to another driver. Anyway, I am very sorry and I hope things get better soon. A point about the Stewards and the policies we enforce; There is no policy/rule/regulation against an attempted pass gone wrong. The R2P policies are very understanding that we are not professionals and that accidents will happen in every race. They do in professional motor sports and they surely will happen in Online motor sports where we have many other factors that the real-world drivers do not have to deal with; Internet latency, huge skill differences, no fear of injury or death, 100% amateur (or below) drivers... What I am getting at, in defense of all the Stewards, is that we (the Stewards) have to determine what is a rule violation and what is just a 'mistake'. There is a big difference between a broken rule and a mistake. We do not take heavy handed actions against the person who simply made a mistake as we will all be on the pointy end of mistakes from time to time. We do make sure to educate them as best we can and help them improve. If we continue to see these same mistakes over a period of time, we then take some harsh(er) actions. The only purpose of the "first lap punt rule" was to get everyone to calm down in the riskiest part of the entire race; T1 of L1. It has worked great, but now there is a perception (as you say) that "it is OK to punt on lap-2". That is not true by any means of course. It just means there is no automatic and instant penalty associated with a lap-2+ punt but that does not mean they are "free" to the offender. The Protest procedure is in place for everyone to use, but oddly enough only 1 or 2 protests are filed each week, if even that many. It is not easy to see trends of those that need some education/penalties when no one uses the procedure. Its kind of like complaining about taxes but refusing to vote for your politicians... Lots of complaints, but very few proper protests. I encourage people to use the procedure so the stewards can determine who needs more education (or penalties) and who does not. I invite anyone who wishes to actively participate in this process to join the group of Stewards for a short period, or permanently. The more stewards we have, the better we can watch over our events and find those that need education or penalties. | ||
The Protest procedure is in place for everyone to use, but oddly enough only 1 or 2 protests are filed each week, if even that many. It is not easy to see trends of those that need some education/penalties when no one uses the procedure. Then it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. With so few protests to handle, the stewards are not going to bring the hammer down on someone for avoidable contact when they see the same thing happen half a dozen other times in the same event but with no associated protest. The steward mindset becomes "I don't see what this driver is complaining about since this other driver got it much worse and didn't protest", so the matter gets pigeonholed into the all-too popular racing incident category. I realize this is partially a manpower issue. R2P is set up to use live stewards, but (because so many are needed?) the stewards themselves do not have to meet any sort of eligibility requirements and (unless it's changed since I was doing it) therefore are not given any authority to penalize a driver for avoidable contact, which should be the easiest thing in the world to be able to call. Case in point: yesterday's 12 Hours of Sebring, where an R8 was given a stop-and-go penalty for the avoidable contact he made on one of the Flying Lizard Porsches going into 3. If this had happened in an R2P event, I can practically guarantee it would have been deemed a racing incdent. The R8 driver would have received no penalty, although he may have received a PM from Tim letting him know that he should be more careful next time. Now he has it in the back of his mind that the mistake he made wasn't really all that big a deal, even though in actuality it cost someone else their track/finishing position, or at worst ended their race. I was quite vocal about the need for a protest system when R2P was in its infancy and had none. One was eventually implemented, but guys like Garret are a prime example of why it's failing. Protesters lose their faith in the system because they don't see it working and subsequently stop filing protests. Since they're not being protested and/or penalized, we still have too many drivers that think it's okay to rough someone up in order to get past them, because the protest system that is supposed to be governing that behavior is too lax, or they simply say "sorry dude, your brake point was earlier than I expected" and that's the end of it for them. That is, until the next race when they do it again. There are a few events I've been interested in joining here recently, but after seeing some of the names that were already registered for them I have opted not to. Why? Because I don't trust them or they way they drive, and I didn't want to run the increased risk of having my race ruined by them simply because they were going to be on the same track as me. If I were to have joined the event, and suffered the all-too-likely "racing incident" at the hands of one of them, I'm sure I'd be in the very same boat as Garret: pissed off not only at the driver, but also at the system that refuses to penalize them while simultaneously refusing to call them out for their wrong doings. NASA isn't secretive about the penalties they levy against drivers that race in their real series; I see no reason why R2P/NasaSimRacing shouldn't follow suit. The same goes for just about every motorsports sanctioning body I can think of; everyone is aware when someone gets penalized, they're just not privy to the discussions about it. In the case of sim racers, a little public humility would go a long way towards helping them get their head screwed back on straight, or at least towards making them think twice about how they're going to race you the next time. | ||
I hear you Garret,I don't think I've had as much " bad luck " as you but, I think I'm also alittle too nice on the track. And Nice guys aren't going to win many races. Well said TC, wise beyond your years. :) | ||
Chris, I know we have had different views on this subject for a long time. And I continue to say the same things to you, and others, about "avoidable contact". All contact is avoidable, it is that simple. I know that ALMS and GrandAm have rules in place so that there is effectively a penalty for each and every instance of contact on track. Has that stopped the instances of contact? Obviously not, as you just sited an incident of contact from this weekends race. The contact between us sim-racers are "accidents" which are caused by mistakes caused by our overall lack of skill and experience. The simple underlying problem is our skill sets, not malicious intent. If the professionals in ALMS and GrandAm still make contact, both with the harsh penalties and the fact that they are all professionals, how is it that any of us expect us sim-racers to be better then these professionals? Our protest procedure is in place (due in large part to member requests early on) but no one uses it. Those that do use it have different views which depend solely on whether or not the decision is in favor of them or not. When the Stewards decide in your favor, the procedure is working. But when we do not make the call you guys are expecting from us, it is all of a sudden "flawed" and/or broken. Honestly, the Stewards are not always going to make the decision you want. We do not advertise specific drivers and penalties for one simple reason; Public shame/humiliation is not a productive educational process. It runs people off, but does not help them grow. If you review some of the post-race reports over the past 6 months, you will find announcements of penalties associated with that event. We do not name specific drivers, but the penalties have been announced out after each race for many months now. The Stewards were never intended to police on-track incidents, but they have had to evolve into such Stewards and we do discuss incidents both in real time and afterwards in a private discussion area. If you are not seeing as many penalties as you think there should be, it is because people are not using the protest procedure. Complaining in post-race reports is NOT a proper protest and your incident will not be reviewed. If you do not file a proper protest how can you expect anything to be done about it? You guys want something done about that driver that is causing problems... it is in YOUR hands and no one else's. The problem is not the Stewards or the rules, but the members refusal to use a procedure that they asked for. Again, I invite any of you to join us Stewards in taking an active and constructive role in this process. | ||
NASA isn't secretive about the penalties they levy against drivers that race in their real series; I see no reason why R2P/NasaSimRacing shouldn't follow suit. The same goes for just about every motorsports sanctioning body I can think of; everyone is aware when someone gets penalized, they're just not privy to the discussions about it. In the case of sim racers, a little public humility would go a long way towards helping them get their head screwed back on straight, or at least towards making them think twice about how they're going to race you the next time. I agree 100% | ||
And many paying customers will see their name thrown up in black and white and think "fuck this, why should I pay to be humiliated?" thus killing off interest in R2P and spreading the word that it is a hostile place to compete. A business requires growth to be succesful, and scaring away new members is not condusive to good business. |