OK, so today I had a good days racing turn into a bad day, due to the driving standards at my local club race meeting. I was so cheesed off that I felt the need to say something, as I feel the problem is not just 'up north' of the country! And I'm wondering if it's like this in other parts of the UK?
Now maybe I'm old school, and I drive with a sense of fair play, If I tag someone and put them on there lid or off the track, I wait and give them the position back! even if it's at my cost of a position! After racing competitively for well over 25 years, I have been around long enough to see how the hobby has changed, both positively and negatively. Car's and equipment are better and faster! But over the passed few years, I have noticed something that is a worry to me, that the current crop of driver's and even more so the young drivers 'the xbox generation', are missing something from racing that makes racing RC Cars 'FUN', while some are gifted with the ability to drive a car around the track at a very fast pace, 'from what I have noticed' they nearly all are missing the ability to overtake cleanly and hold back until the opportunity to overtake happens! They have no sense of fair play, only a 'win at all cost' attitude! Now, while we all want to win our races, there is 'or used to be' a skill or art to racing! I remember watching 'and racing in' races where drivers would drive around the track 'to the best of there abilities' bumper to bumper, the skill was in putting the car in front under enough pressure that they would make a mistake, and you would do a clean over take! And if you were the car in front, the skill was trying to drive a defensive line, but if you tagged the car in front, more often than not you were told to give the place back, and in most cases you would give it back automatically out of a sense of fairness. But these day's it's more like, 'If I hit the car in front and gain the position then that's all the matters!' I need to win!. And what's so upsetting, is there seems to be nothing being done as regards to driving standards. I see to many times the parents of a kid going off there heads at someone for tagging there kid's car, yet when there kid does the same thing they stand there and say nothing! I've race at many club's all over, and it seems to now be a common theme of 'bad driving standards' at almost every club you go to! While we all want and need young up and coming drivers, for the sake of the hobby, surely every club 'and parent' should be doing there bit to instill into these drivers/kid's, that racing is not just about getting your car around the track as fast as you can, but also doing it in the 'Right' manner! We all put a lot of time and money in to our hobby, and I feel it's unfair that so many racers go home from a race meeting, fed up and cheesed off, because there car got used as a battering ram!
