From The Chair
From The Chair: Race Director’s Approach to Rough Driving
I’m a firm believer that drivers will race as cleanly as they are told they must, or as roughly as they see they can. As the Race Director, you get to pick. Or you can do nothing and green light the high contact racing.
First, the pitch for insisting on clean driving. Your objectives as an RD should be to provide a 1) fair and 2) enjoyable racing experience for the participants. Rough driving impacts both of these objectives. Rough driving reduces fairness, by disadvantaging the participants victimized and advantaging the hacks who hit them! While there are the occasional folks who actively enjoy hacking others, and may thrive by later recounting how horribly they did someone in, there is literally no one who enjoys being plowed into.
To limit rough driving, you first must understand the principle “I will if I can”. The natural state of an RC race is that people will fight to improve their position. Here, racers divide into two groups: never hack and I will if I can. The never hack drivers will consistently drive to avoid wrecking other cars. You need not concern yourself with these drivers, although knowing who they are can certainly influence your reaction to contact. Most racers, however, are more willing… they don’t mind a little rubbing (rubbing is racing, they’ll say) and if that rubbing causes their opponent to spin, flip, or fly off the track… well, things do happen in racing. It’s these folks we’re going to focus on. They aren’t out to hack people, just willing to if they can get away with it. As a Race Director, you want to convince them that they can’t get away with it.
There are three things you do to convince them:
1 – You tell them. Tell them in a driver’s meeting. Tell them with a warning (“watch that contact #9”). Tell them personally (“Joe, you’ve got to watch that pit maneuver you gave Tom.”)
2 – You reward CLEAN driving. Compliment drivers on their clean passes and patience. Publicly observe when people hold up and wait for a car they hit to get back in front of them. Tell them personally.
3 – You punish someone. This could be a hold-up, a docked lap, or even pulling them out of a race.
In my experience, many RDs are very reluctant to punish rough driving. Maybe they thing the hack will be mad, or that they’ll have to do that constantly. However, without this step, nothing else matters. No amount of complaining, telling, or complimenting can convince people they cannot get away with rough driving… because unless they are punished, they CAN.
There’s an old adage about the Wild West. How does a small group of outlaws take over a town full of people? They walk in and shoot the three toughest men they find, and everyone else falls in line.
You won’t need to call rough driving constantly. Once you shoot a couple of drivers with a stop-and-go, everyone will work harder to avoid hacking others. You’ve proven that you mean it, and that they cannot get away with rough driving. For your local club racing, you will establish a standard of driving behavior through this process, and that will act as a flywheel. Other people who aren’t regulars will come race, but they’ll quickly feel the lack of contact and fall into line.
My approach to larger events is very simple. The first time I note you driving badly, you get a light warning. The second time is a stop-and-go. The third time, I pull you out of that race. If you hold yourself up before I can say anything, that buys you out. I outline this clearly in the driver’s meeting. It works.
There is obviously some personalization here. I’ll definitely treat a newer driver with more leeway than an experienced hand. However, when you make rules like this, understand that you OWE the driver victimized by a hack the justice you promised would occur. And you owe it to yourself to hold up your word.
There is one more type of driver: the hack. This rare beast doesn’t care who they run into, and they also don’t care who tells them to clean it up. If a couple of tries don’t result in substantial improvement, just resign yourself to one simple fact: these folks should be moved along. They don’t need to stop driving RC, they just can’t do it here.
That’s this RDs take on rough driving in a nutshell. I hope it inspires you to clean up your crew, and results in happier racers all around!
First, the pitch for insisting on clean driving. Your objectives as an RD should be to provide a 1) fair and 2) enjoyable racing experience for the participants. Rough driving impacts both of these objectives. Rough driving reduces fairness, by disadvantaging the participants victimized and advantaging the hacks who hit them! While there are the occasional folks who actively enjoy hacking others, and may thrive by later recounting how horribly they did someone in, there is literally no one who enjoys being plowed into.
To limit rough driving, you first must understand the principle “I will if I can”. The natural state of an RC race is that people will fight to improve their position. Here, racers divide into two groups: never hack and I will if I can. The never hack drivers will consistently drive to avoid wrecking other cars. You need not concern yourself with these drivers, although knowing who they are can certainly influence your reaction to contact. Most racers, however, are more willing… they don’t mind a little rubbing (rubbing is racing, they’ll say) and if that rubbing causes their opponent to spin, flip, or fly off the track… well, things do happen in racing. It’s these folks we’re going to focus on. They aren’t out to hack people, just willing to if they can get away with it. As a Race Director, you want to convince them that they can’t get away with it.
There are three things you do to convince them:
1 – You tell them. Tell them in a driver’s meeting. Tell them with a warning (“watch that contact #9”). Tell them personally (“Joe, you’ve got to watch that pit maneuver you gave Tom.”)
2 – You reward CLEAN driving. Compliment drivers on their clean passes and patience. Publicly observe when people hold up and wait for a car they hit to get back in front of them. Tell them personally.
3 – You punish someone. This could be a hold-up, a docked lap, or even pulling them out of a race.
In my experience, many RDs are very reluctant to punish rough driving. Maybe they thing the hack will be mad, or that they’ll have to do that constantly. However, without this step, nothing else matters. No amount of complaining, telling, or complimenting can convince people they cannot get away with rough driving… because unless they are punished, they CAN.
There’s an old adage about the Wild West. How does a small group of outlaws take over a town full of people? They walk in and shoot the three toughest men they find, and everyone else falls in line.
You won’t need to call rough driving constantly. Once you shoot a couple of drivers with a stop-and-go, everyone will work harder to avoid hacking others. You’ve proven that you mean it, and that they cannot get away with rough driving. For your local club racing, you will establish a standard of driving behavior through this process, and that will act as a flywheel. Other people who aren’t regulars will come race, but they’ll quickly feel the lack of contact and fall into line.
My approach to larger events is very simple. The first time I note you driving badly, you get a light warning. The second time is a stop-and-go. The third time, I pull you out of that race. If you hold yourself up before I can say anything, that buys you out. I outline this clearly in the driver’s meeting. It works.
There is obviously some personalization here. I’ll definitely treat a newer driver with more leeway than an experienced hand. However, when you make rules like this, understand that you OWE the driver victimized by a hack the justice you promised would occur. And you owe it to yourself to hold up your word.
There is one more type of driver: the hack. This rare beast doesn’t care who they run into, and they also don’t care who tells them to clean it up. If a couple of tries don’t result in substantial improvement, just resign yourself to one simple fact: these folks should be moved along. They don’t need to stop driving RC, they just can’t do it here.
That’s this RDs take on rough driving in a nutshell. I hope it inspires you to clean up your crew, and results in happier racers all around!
