You know the sad part about this... I remember when Scott Fisher originally
posted this wonderful piece of literature...
John Steczkowski
----- Original Message -----
From: "eric salem" <ebsalem@radiks.net>
To: <autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 7:31 PM
Subject: RE: My favorite Scott Fisher-ism
> 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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