Motorsports Etiquette; or, How To Make People Hate You On Track
TORA's Ginetta Challenge was one hell of a mess due to low driving standards and low-percentage divebombs. During the course of the TORA GC season, something became very clear to me: people actually believe the "if gap, car" sentiment whole-heartedly. so let me explain why that's some bonehead bullshit.
Overtakes are the most exciting part of a race whether you're watching or competing. However, for competitors there are some unwritten rules about how to make a pass properly. These unwritten rules are widely accepted among competitors, but can be disregarded in very particular exceptions in a way that most competitors can at least understand, even if they don't respect the decisions that were made. Here are some of those rules.
PART ONE: THE VORTEX OF DANGER.
The Vortex of Danger is a phenomenon that experienced racers all know about, but is best explained by Randy Pobst who coined the term. In fact, it's such a fantastic explanation of the phenomenon that it's cited and explained in the Sports Car Club of America's rulebook, and the SCCA is a pretty significant organizing body for your ideas to be quoted by. To simplify things for people who aren't as experienced with track racing, the Vortex of Danger is essentially the blindspots where a racer you're trying to overtake can't see you. If you have your driver's license, then you know what your blindspots are; your A-pillar, or the two supports bordering the front windshield that go from the body of the car to the roof, cause a blindspot that can hide bicycles, pedestrians or even entire vehicles given enough distance. In racing, your blindspots are essentially your peripheral vision. You have access to your mirrors too, but this changes when you're approaching a corner - just like it would on public roads.
On the street in your daily driver, you check your mirrors and blindspots, you check if you have the right of way, and then you look where you want to go and move there. On the track, it's pretty much the same thing but much faster. The difference lies in the traffic around you; on public streets, there are very specific rules about how to navigate around traffic to ensure the least amount of risk to all people on the road. In racing, the traffic has no rules and no speed limits either. This is where keeping the Vortex of Danger in mind starts mattering quite a lot.
So, how do you prevent a collision from happening? It's quite simple: if you're making an overtake, you should be beside the car you're trying to pass before turn-in. You need to be inside the other driver's field of vision early enough before the corner to make them realize that there is a car next to them that is taking up space. The earlier you can get inside that field of vision, the safer the pass will be. That isn't to say the pass will be collision-free, of course; there are too many uncontrolled variables in motorsports to make safe passes a guarantee. At the very least, though, this is the safest way to pass. If a driver makes the move into the driver's field of view too late, this is often referred to as a "divebomb." In that situation, your car may have had a few inches to a foot of overlap with the other car's rear bumper, but only came into their field of vision because you managed to brake for the corner later than the other car. The further back you are when you try to outbrake the other car, the bigger the divebomb and thus the riskier the pass. Again, this isn't a guarantee the pass will cause a collision, but a collision is a lot more likely. There are no rules about passing like this, but rules become a factor if a collision happens.
Essentially, the Vortex of Danger's intent is to inform drivers how to make a safe overtake. The best way to overtake is to make the overtake attempt as difficult to overlook as it possibly can be. If you're perfectly beside the car you're trying to pass, you're making a safer overtake attempt. If you're not in the driver's peripheral vision, don't be surprised when a collision happens. This leads us to our topic for today.
PART TWO: IF GAP, CAR
During the third round of TORA GC at Road Atlanta absolute chaos ensued featuring unnecessary risks, multiple collisions and numerous arguments. This is because a particular group of racing drivers in the series either aren't aware of the Vortex of Danger phenomenon, or don't think it matters. During one of these discussions, one driver who had a reputation for aggressive driving said, and I quote, "the gap was there, so I put my car in it. That's racing. I had previously heard the "if gap, then car" statement told to me as a joke; a sort of insult towards aggressive drivers who enter the Vortex of Danger willingly. It's actually a bastardization of a quote from legendary Formula 1 driver (and pedophile) Ayrton Senna, whose full quote is as follows:
"If you no longer go for a gap which exists, you are no longer a racing driver."
What he's saying is, if the car ahead of you isn't actively keeping you from making an overtake attempt and you choose not to take that chance, you're a bad racing driver. The thing is, he was lying his fucking face off when he said it.
At Suzuka in the 1990 Formula 1 season, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna were in a very heated battle for the championship. If Prost was unable to finish the race, it would confirm Senna as the season's champion. So that's exactly what he did; in the first corner of the first lap, Senna intentionally wrecked Prost to guarantee the championship. Beyond that, it was also retaliation for Prost taking Senna out the previous year at the same race. When asked about how the incident happened, Senna used the "if gap, then car" justification - which even at the time was pretty obvious bullshit. A year after the incident, Senna himself would admit the incident was intentional. So, imagine my surprise when people from last night's race who were causing problems literally said the exact same things in the chatroom. What I once thought was an insult towards aggressive drivers was now actually being said as if it was a legitimate defense for aggressive overtakes and unsafe driving.
This experience in TORA Ginetta Challenge has now entirely validated my own mindset when it comes to racing. Rather than pretending every other driver on track is oblivious and using the Vortex of Danger as a way to guide myself through a pass, I now realize that I don't have to pretend they're oblivious idiots anymore, and the Vortex is not as much a guide as it is a fucking prayer I should cling to with a white-knuckle grip. Every driver, until proven otherwise, is a complete fucking idiot, and I should treat them that way. This means giving up positions to known, untrustworthy drivers to let them ruin someone else's race instead. This means no divebombing. This means making my overtakes as obvious as possible so even the most clueless of drivers know I'm beside them. There are no rules for passing, so I'll make the rules, and force everyone around me to follow those rules whether they want to or not.
EDIT (10/11/2024 8:10PM)
I want to make something very clear: This problem with poor driving standards has nothing to do with TORA, and everything to do with the drivers in TORA who repeatedly show the same problematic behavior over and over again. Punishing poor race driving is extremely difficult for an organizing body to do, short of enacting an overall "if you suck we'll ban you" type of rule in the rulebook, and that tends to send the wrong message, and can unintentionally scare newer competitors away who are genuinely trying to learn how to be better racing drivers. This is bigger than TORA, anyway; I see these problems all the time in every race I partake in, whether it's on Forza or iRacing. Real-life motorsports even has the same problem; Max Verstappen made his whole F1 career out of being extremely dangerous and aggressive. The difference, however, is that F1 is made up of a bunch of rich assholes in cars that can kill people. In a video game you can't get hurt, so people feel incentive to drive dumber than Verstappen ever would - creating the sub-standard driving quality that inspired me to write this whole post.
Shoutouts to TORA, y'all kick ass. But some of the people driving in y'all's series suck shit lol.