[ Closed ] GREED IS GOOD? (Page 2 of 4)

This is a good point, and we've drilled it into our drivers. Our version is "I fucked up out there. I need to calm down and dial it back. I'll make sure that doesn't happen again." I did that when I got BF'd for passing under yellow, even though I knew that I hadn't passed under yellow (turned out they called in the wrong number, 22 vice 122). When they figured it out they gave us a get out of jail free card, which we ended up needing, so it's all good. But any kind of argument or explanation is going to make things worse, so we just agree with whatever they tell us, no matter if they get it wrong or right. The only time that I've really had a problem with that is when I saw that a car had dumped their entire oil pan on the track. I drove straight off into the grass after I drove through the oil, and when I tried to tell Jay about it, he called me a liar and said that I was just trying to weasel out of a penalty. I thought they should have taken it seriously and red flagged the track, but I've never organized and run an event like that, so what do I know.

I would hate to see this post get deleted.

I can not recall a controversial discussion getting deleted from the Lemons forum.  I think it kind of adds some integrity.

I had a post from the Chump forum deleted which very factually stated information about John Condren the founder. 

He formed Chump to cash in on Crap Cans, not to offer a better service to the community than Lemons.

John Condren is a marketing guy, not an engineer.  He may be a car nut too like the rest of us.  I have read posts that clearly showed he did not understand all the structural aspects of the roll cage yet he is supposed to determine what is safe.

The Integra that won the Chump race at TMS is a cheater.  I know the guy that built it and I am aware of the guys that race it now and they drive like pricks.

The Nudists SHO is a hardcore cheating machine and they have brought in hardcore drivers too.  They and their Tilton oil pumps for coolers were endorsed by Chump at TMS.  The blew a few wheel bearings and lost a master cylinder.  Of course according to John Condren, stock brakes are adequate for what we are doing. 

Those are two cars in the Gulf Coast region that are fast and they drive like pricks and most competitors and staff know it.  They are also two of the few cars that have run into my car out of many 100+ car events.

There seem to be cars that are always in trouble and other cars that never are.  It isn't because the organizers or corner workers are biased.  It's due to the quality of the drivers.

Chump allows more contact and bad driving because John Condren feels that's okay.  That does not make it right.  They also don't have enough cars in their events to be real picky.

Regarding real racing and competition in Lemons.  We typically set some of the fastest laps times in the events we are in.  Our best finish however has been 3rd overall and first in class.

We led our last race at MSR for about the first 2.5 hours until our water pump belt snapped.  We made our fastest lap under 2 minutes in the first two hours while there were 100+ cars on the track.  We had a good driver in the car.  That was the fastest lap of the race well into Sunday.

We ran most of the day Saturday in the top 10 until our engine died yet we had Zero black flags.  Why?  We had good drivers.

The one black flag I have earned this year, was legit.  I went wheels off when the car I was trying to pass went wide out of the turn and I ran out of track.  I don't think they saw me but it was my responsibility to make a clean pass and I failed.  I told the Judges what happened, we did a quick driver change and they sent the car back out while I paid for my penalty.

The Judges an Organizers are far more aware of what is going on than you may realize.  Of course they notice you more when you earn frequent flier miles to the penalty box.

Xceler8x/jgorman,

I recommend at your next race (should you choose to attend one) that you sit in the judging area for a couple of hours and watch how they log black flags and what Phil and Jay do.  You'll come away impressed.

If all you want to do is race, then by all means go race ChumpCar.  It's oriented more towards "All I want to do is drive fast relatively cheaply".  Lemons is about taking a piece of crap and pushing at far as it will go.  Most Lemons races involve spending almost as much time fixing the car as racing it.

You may have found some bad luck with your black flags.  We average about 1 per race without counting flags for mechanical issues (they don't hold the mechanicals against you).  Good mirrors (and actually looking at them) are a big help.   The all fault policy is in place because the only training required is a valid drivers license and $50.  Some of the drivers out there don't even know what "line" and "apex" mean.  That means you need to leave room for them to screw up.

probably a good idea but it loses me at "teams need to self-police"

on Sunday at CMP i listened to race control attempt to bring in a crimson civic with black flags waved in turns 11, 14 and start/ finish to no avail.

the civic went around for at least 6 laps before he came in to the pits.  the corner workers kept saying the dude never even looked their way.  obviously a bone head behind the wheel.

so after serving the penalty the car made about three laps before coming into the hot pit for a driver change.  i assume it was the bone head that got back in the car.  hard to tell as they were sharing one helmet and neck collar.

this team as a whole should suffer the penalty as they are obviously not too concerned with the rules.

It's written on our dashboard, lest they forget.

While Spank has put alot of good thought into the idea it is as one person noted a bit to manage.

Also, back to my point, you gotta sell the idea to the insurance man.  There are plenty of teams getting through with 0 or 1 flag so its not like this is an impossible task.

our team only had one really experienced driver, 2 whidh had seen a track and 3 which had never been on a track.  We managed 1 black flag for 4 off by one of the experienced drivers who admitted he was pushing the car too hard to test its limits.  You dont need to find the limits of the car in an endurance race.  He manned up, pitted before the flags even flew and immediately said to the judges "Im sorry, I f-ked up, it wont happen again"  and on his way he was sent.  Easy peasy.

Troy has not said anything that has not been said and documented many other places.  Including the Chump board, but they dont mind deleting a post rather than face the controversy.

As far as cheating, it exists in all forms of racing at all levels.  The real "sport" in racing is not getting caught at cheating.  Lemons at least has some fun with it. 

I have lots of friends who have run Chumpcar and enjoyed it, based on all their personal accounts it's not for me.  They are different series' based on a similar idea, one focused on fun, one focused on "real racing"  Choose your poison, do both if it suits you.  But please, review rule 2.4 before posting again.

Just my 2 cents on a couple things....

This guy is complaining about CMP?  Try Stafford where we have almost as many cars on a 1/2 mile(?) bullring.  Its like doing an interpretative dance out there trying to keep your nose clean!  My team is of generally level headed guys but a couple of us (me included) are a bit too aggressive out there, and we get called on it.  Does it piss me off? yes.  But we know that was the name of the game coming in.  Hell last event the largest reason we were parked is cause we got hit, twice!  But whatever so were the other guys, and we wouldn't have been parked if I hadn't gotten 4 wheels off earlier and a couple of my other drivers hadn't done a few loop-de-loops.  Read the rule book its all spelled out in there, pay attention at the drivers meeting they will explain it. We spent enough time hanging by the penalty box (because it was entertaining to watch) to see they screw everyone equally, especially their friends who they expect to know better. 

Now lashing out at other teams and calling them kiss asses or questioning their driving... really???  Admittedly I am taking this a bit personally because I know the team in question and they are friends of ours and helped us a lot in our first year doing this, but thats pretty damn rude.  You don't like it you stated your case.  Apparently 99 other teams were fine with it because you don't have a bunch of backers showing up here for you.

Here, take your ball, door is to the left.

you're certainly entitled to your opinion.  if the series has changed, IMO it's been for the better (except for the fender rule!).  i wouldn't be interested in the old-style demo derby.  and as far as i can tell, every change has been driven by safety concerns, which generally arise b/c of bad driving.

yep.  and they will park teams they really like just as quickly as teams they don't know from Adam, or teams that are a constant PITA.

and having worked in the penalty box for a race, i know that they generally try to be fair with the penalties.  if it really wasn't your fault and they know it (from being told by a corner worker) they will usually take it easy on you as long as you're not an indignant d-bag.  the BF still coutns, but let's be honest...no one's luck is bad enough that they get 3 or 4 truly undeserved BFs in a weekend.  if you keep finding yourself in a bad position, you should reevaluate your driving b/c you're not playing enough defense.

as far as self-policing...that should take care of it without needing to worry about "penalties per driver."  i have known teams that yanked a guy out of the car b/c he kept getting flagged.

i do my best to not get flagged b/c i know that getting pulled in is letting my teammates down (in fact, our MR2 came back from Summit with "we are letting Rob down" written all over it).

everyone knows the rules going in.  if you disagree with them, feel free to run ChumpCar or start your own race series.  last time i checked, you're in the minority...the current formula seems to be working just fine for a whole lot of people.

Other things that never work in the Penalty Box:

1. Setting up the discussion so that your personal honor is at stake (e.g., "Are you saying I'm a liar? I'm an honest man, just ask anyone!"). Things always go downhill fast from this point.

2. Pointing to a dent on the car and claiming it "proves" that your driver was not at fault.

3. Claiming that (other team) is getting away with repeated offenses and not getting flagged, with the heavy implication being that this team has paid off the corner workers. Actually, paying off the corner workers might be a sound strategy, but do you think they'd tell us about it?

4. Picking out some other team with a similar car number or paint color and claiming you're getting zapped for their bad behavior. Do this enough times and we'll make you repaint your car and/or change your number, and we'll make it take a long time.

Having just run a Chump event this weekend (sorry, it was a 3-hour drive vs. a 9-hour drive... and it was Sebring... I LOVE Sebring!), my second Chump event (sorry again, but they're doing races in FL), I can chime in a little bit.

First, yeah, they are a LOT more liberal with the black flags.  You generally don't get one unless you really earn it.  They'll flag for passing under yellow, but otherwise, you have to make a REALLY boneheaded move, or habitually make the same mistake to get flagged.  To use myself as an example, I was passing people two-wheels off on the inside (and occasionally the outside) all day long.  It was just a modified line that I took in a few places to give me an edge to get around people... and occasionally, it was just me maneuvering around a driver that was getting loose at the last second.  FWIW, I drove EXACTLY the same way at the Lemons race at Nelson Ledges and never got flagged for it there, either.  I think the Lemons black flag for two off is a fairly new thing.

At the Chump race, I even drove 4 off once (nudged off track by a Crown Vic), spun once, and blew a braking zone and drove off-course (stayed on pavement, but went between some cones marking no-mans land) once, all without being flagged.  I have to say that I DO like the way the Chump races are flagged.  However, the Chump races that I've done have had 12 cars and 35 cars.  THINGS ARE DIFFERENT when there are 90+ cars on a race track!  I believe Lemons has to be more strict to avoid complete chaos... and they've learned that from experience.

But, to say that Chump is any more "consistent" or "fair" in any other way is a false statement.  They do things a little differently, but trust me, there are plenty of faults with their system, too.  Just TRY to make sense of their logic behind who gets penalty laps and who gets bonus laps, I dare you!

Bottom line is that it's all crap-can racing, it's all fun... and the organizers of both series invariably do a great job of letting you know what's expected of you at their driver's meetings and in their rules.  If something is not clear to you, just ask and it will be clarified.  Do what they expect you to do on the race track and you'll stay on the race track until your car blows up.  Violate their rules or expectations and you'll get flagged.  BITCH about getting flagged and you'll sit out even longer than you would have otherwise.  Pretty sure that goes for any race series, yelling at the chief steward is never a good idea if you want to get back into his race.

It's far more than hearsay at this point regarding Condren. You may not have been around when this was discussed before, but it's a long story. If you want to know the facts, google "john condren riverside motorsports park" and read everything in the Merced newspaper from the start of the project until it was foreclosed upon, the outrageous promises that were made and not kept, and the dozens of folks who extended hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit to the project who got stiffed in the end. Make sure to follow the rabbit trail about the deceit in the resume submitted to folks funding the development, the kind of thing that if federal funds were involved could have resulted in federal charges (just ask Henry Cisneros how that works). I'm not trying to be a downer here, but there's a lot of history and this isn't the thread for it. But Troy's right.

As for the greed part, do you think issuing an Aston Martin Lagonda, with free repairs as needed, to every Lemons HQ staffer has been cheap? Sure, it may look like Jay drives a 10-year-old Volvo wagon, but that's just until the Lagondas get back from the shop. Again.