Looks like the clearly stated Mr. Fisher has slapped down the whole SM/"why
can't I play" issue.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-autox@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-autox@autox.team.net]On
Behalf Of Josh Sirota
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 4:25 PM
To: 'autox@autox.team.net'
Subject: My favorite Scott Fisher-ism
Scott sent this to this mailing list back in 1994. The perfect answer to
the ever-present "I Class" issue.
Scott is still around, I ran into him several weeks back. Like many of us,
he found that life was about more than spending every waking weekend moment
in a parking lot! :-)
Quick Scott Fisher bio: Scott is a technical writer for computer companies
by trade (which seems to work, as Katie Kelly is too). He also used to
write a weekly restaurant review column for our local newspaper, the San
Jose Mercury News -- south bay folks will still find his columns framed on
the walls of most every restaurant (decent) in the area.
His racing career was mostly in MGBs, both autocrossing and racing. He was
a mid-pack driver, but sure enjoyed himself! His first event win was in a
GTI though (I still remember the elation on his face!) He pretty much gave
up autocrossing in the mid-'90s to spend time with his young family.
Josh
Scott's e-mail follows:
--------------------------------------
Tim's penny drops:
~ I feel what drives SCCA events is not a love for cars, but a love
~ for winning.
For several years, I've talked about exactly this dichotomy, one that
I felt most strongly in the two years I spent chasing the road-racing
dream. I observed that two types of people were attracted to racing
(or autox or probably rallying as well). At the extreme ends of this
dichotomy, you have the following two vastly oversimplified profiles:
- People who like cars, usually a particular marque, and who are
attracted to racing/autocross/etc. as the ultimate expression of
that aspect of their vehicular mania
- People who like to compete, who are attracted to racing as a
way to drive not merely fast, but *faster than someone else*, and
who view the car as an expendable and fundamentally uninteresting
appliance for doing that.
You and I, Tim, get to raise our hands, jump up and down, and go
"Me! Me! Over here!" when they call the roll for the first group.
But by their basic nature, *competitive motorsports are oriented toward
the latter category.* That's what the "competitive" and "sports"
mean. On the other hand, marque clubs are oriented toward the former
category. So is Vintage Racing, for the most part.
The SCCA is not a marque club. It has the unenviable job of trying
to balance, as reasonably as possible, the conflicting desires of
people from all ends of this spectrum. If it's also hard on people
who don't happen to have the optimum vehicle for a particular
class, well, all you can really ask is that the rules be the same
for everyone.
I've heard a couple of people say, somewhat peevishly, that to be
really competitive, you have to buy the right car. Welcome to
racing. Ask Michael Andretti or Damon Hill how important the right
car is to winning. It's not important to the Porsche Supercup, or
the IROC series, or Spec Racer, or SS, but to everything else, the
simple fact of the matter is that some cars are just faster than
others, and if you haven't got one of the faster cars, there's
no amount of bitching about it that will take a tenth of a second
off your lap times. Either buy a faster car, or work on
your driving, or look for other ways to enjoy yourself on course --
there are other things that make autocrossing fun besides two-dollar
bowling trophies or stopwatches with "1st" on them.
~ There is just an apparent Solo II mentality which I do not subscribe
~ to.. the Solo II mentality I dont like is :
~
~ 1. you need the car (equipment) of the year
~ 2. you need the tires (equipment) of the year
This is why it's a Sport, and not a Game. This is why it's called
Competition, and not Participation. This is why it's called Winning,
and not Playing.
Lest anyone (especially Tim, who probably *still* has grease from my
hopelessly uncompetitive car under his fingernails) think I'm coming
down too hard on Tim -- I'm firmly entrenched in the cars-for-fun
camp. I've seen what it takes for me to win -- drive someone else's
Miata and bingo, trophy time. I don't currently have one for a lot
of reasons, some rational, some bordering on reason to call the wagon
full of men with nets. But it's *my* decision, not the SCCA's.
If you want to win, well, YES, you have to have the right car, and
the right equipment, as well as the right skill. One of the nicest
parts of autocrossing is that the skill is probably still the largest
component of success (if you measure success by trophy size), and you
can gain skill in any car, even something as hopelessly oversized and
clumsy as a Volvo or as antiquated and outclassed as an M.G. The
real trick, as David Blanchard pointed out the last time I raised this
point, is to balance the needs of the sport -- with the emphasis on
competing to win -- against the egos of newcomers who happen to have
bought the wrong car (in addition to being on the hard slope of the
learning curve, being newcomers).
I think we've all been brain-damaged by reading one time too many about
how Nuvolari won the '36 (or was it '37?) Nurburgring in a two-year-old
Alfa, simply by driving harder than the Mercedes and Auto Union teams.
We all want to be Nuvolari, when in reality we're lucky if we're Marco
Greco. (Wasn't it Chuck Slana who used to call himself "The Dale Coyne
of autocrossing?" :-)
~ What dismayed me was a gentlman I met starting out autocrossing his
~ Jag XJ6 returned the next year in a Geo Storm, another retired a
~ lovely 2800CSi for a Civic. Why? Obviously because of pressure to "win."
And who applied that pressure? Not the SCCA. Not the SEB. Not even
the people who bust their butts to put on the event for these two
drivers. They must have decided that the cars they bought were more
"fun" than the cars they sold. Who made that decision for them?
One of the hardest lessons in racing is that the only person you have
to blame is the one holding the steering wheel. Or maybe writing the
checks...
~ My value judgement is such that I have the opportunity to spend the last
~ weekend in July at a) the Canadian Volvo Club meet or b) the Finger Lakes
~ Grand Prix. I choose (a). I'm into Volvo's first, autocrossing second.
It's pretty clear where my heart lies as well -- we spent a couple of
weekends installing a new 1.8L motor in a 2100-pound two-seat open
sports car with 14 x 5.5" wheels and 185-60HR-14 tires on it. If I
wanted to win, that would describe a Miata (well, maybe 205-55s).
As it is, I'm going to be running in OSP against 1200-pound cars with
fully independent suspension and mid-mounted 150-bhp motors. I'm
into M.G.s first, autocrossing second.
~ Basically, I have aired what turned me off about SCCA Solo II racing as a
~ hobby.
Ah, that's it. SCCA Solo II isn't a hobby, it's a sport. It has a
clear goal -- completing a given course on a given day in less time
than anyone else. I happen to think that it's possible to pursue
autocross as a hobby within the structure of the SCCA's sport of Solo
II competition, but I also think that NCSCC does a better job in
the Bay Area of addressing the *hobby* autocrosser. We'll take in
a NCSCC event sometime soon. Anyone have a schedule?
~ I'm sorry is such anarchic thoughts irritate you. But Solo II is not
~ the only place to do performance driving, and the rule book is
~ at many times arbitrary.
I disagree. The rule book does a reasonable job in allowing modifications
to cars that aren't pathological. You and I, Tim, happen to like cars
that are pathological for autocrossing. I've won autocrosses, and I've
driven and worked on M.G.s, and I've decided which makes me happier.
I've also already worked myself *through* the stage of bitching at the
rulemakers because they didn't craft the sport for the sole purpose of
letting me win, or bitching at people who beat me because they make
whatever sacrifice is necessary (including the unthinkable one, to me,
of not driving an M.G.!) in order to be competitive. I'm now at the
stage where I'm having fun coming in fifth out of twelve in a car I
like and puffing up my own ego by pointing out that the top four all
have R-compound tires and Flavor Of The Month cars in the class,
therefore I must be a Better Driver for getting so close to their
times in an outclassed vehicle. That's not a bad way to average it
all out. And it's a lot more fun than eating the lining of my stomach
because the mean nasty Solo Board has classified the MGB opposite
cars like the Honda CRX, the Saturn, and now the Neon.
"My mother used to say, 'Elwood' -- she always called me Elwood --
'in this life you can be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant.' Well, for
the better part of forty years I tried to be oh, so smart. I recommend
pleasant." -- from the movie Harvey.
--Scott "And I *know* overweight, clumsy, antiquated and outclassed" Fisher
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