David Morton
Lifetime Supporter
A guy I knew back in the wunnerful sixties when he visited the UK as part of the US Masters Drag Race Team for the first ever event at Poddington wrote the following:
The evolution of stuff like this goes as follows: There is in the beginning a mechanical contrivance, which evolves from a practical, useful machine, intended to make mankind's work easier. A certain kind of tinkerer can't leave his car, boat, tractor etc. like it is. He has to improve it a little bit. Then somebody sees his work and has to do better. The ensuing spiral generates a vortex of rivalries that escalates all the participants to the point of formal competition or racing...
People like this can never leave well enough alone and eventually someone gets hurt in the process of proving that he is smarter and more daring than the next guy. Word of this gets around, and people want to watch this competition to be on hand when the next accident happens.
Now we need a place for official contests to take place and a promoter to advertise the events and collect the admission fees. So the contestants need to organize themselves to establish rules and standards for the competition, because the promoter ain't the teensiest bit interested in conserving the participants. He wants more gate revenue.
So of course, the smartest and boldest competitors get to be the loudest and most respected when it becomes time to set these rules in stone. By purely natural processes, the rules just happen to fit these guys like a glove, and soon they are winning a majority of the marbles every time.
This gets the attention of the promoters, who are out there beating the bushes for Yankee dollars under and over the table to benefit any sponsor they can find, with publicity.
Of course any money that trickles down the food chain will stop at the feet of the top guys in each class of competition who will consequently become unbeatable and a vicious loop will come into being that will cause any competitor with even half a brain to fade out of competition before he becomes bankrupt trying to keep up with the big boys.
Now we have less guys getting more money and the spiral escalates way beyond the point of sportsmanship and the reason for the sport (fun) is completely lost to everyone concerned.
What? You don't agree? Well, just think about what you saw at the last race you were at. No matter where you were, the pits were full of huge semi trucks with lavish trailers and race vehicles that were mobile billboards for everyone who would give anything to the owners, or even more obscene yet, maybe the giving was done to the promoters or the sanctioning group. The participants had all modified the looks of their creations to please those with the big bucks to throw around in the name of a tax write-off. Artificial environments and garish costumes have denoted the red light district everywhere in the world that I have ever seen. Phoniness and how-can-I-impress-you-now pervade the atmosphere so bad it chokes you.
Anybody connected to motorsports today because he loves engines and wants to see how his mechanical skills stack up is invisible in such a perverted atmosphere of people who have sold out everything for the almighty buck, which is therefore the lifeblood of the community that has completely lost its reason for being.
Ingenuity and originality are completely discounted to the point of being shunned and seen as a threat to the peace and progress of the establishment.
WHAT? Joe Schmerd has made an innovation that lets him win?
EJ Potter
The evolution of stuff like this goes as follows: There is in the beginning a mechanical contrivance, which evolves from a practical, useful machine, intended to make mankind's work easier. A certain kind of tinkerer can't leave his car, boat, tractor etc. like it is. He has to improve it a little bit. Then somebody sees his work and has to do better. The ensuing spiral generates a vortex of rivalries that escalates all the participants to the point of formal competition or racing...
People like this can never leave well enough alone and eventually someone gets hurt in the process of proving that he is smarter and more daring than the next guy. Word of this gets around, and people want to watch this competition to be on hand when the next accident happens.
Now we need a place for official contests to take place and a promoter to advertise the events and collect the admission fees. So the contestants need to organize themselves to establish rules and standards for the competition, because the promoter ain't the teensiest bit interested in conserving the participants. He wants more gate revenue.
So of course, the smartest and boldest competitors get to be the loudest and most respected when it becomes time to set these rules in stone. By purely natural processes, the rules just happen to fit these guys like a glove, and soon they are winning a majority of the marbles every time.
This gets the attention of the promoters, who are out there beating the bushes for Yankee dollars under and over the table to benefit any sponsor they can find, with publicity.
Of course any money that trickles down the food chain will stop at the feet of the top guys in each class of competition who will consequently become unbeatable and a vicious loop will come into being that will cause any competitor with even half a brain to fade out of competition before he becomes bankrupt trying to keep up with the big boys.
Now we have less guys getting more money and the spiral escalates way beyond the point of sportsmanship and the reason for the sport (fun) is completely lost to everyone concerned.
What? You don't agree? Well, just think about what you saw at the last race you were at. No matter where you were, the pits were full of huge semi trucks with lavish trailers and race vehicles that were mobile billboards for everyone who would give anything to the owners, or even more obscene yet, maybe the giving was done to the promoters or the sanctioning group. The participants had all modified the looks of their creations to please those with the big bucks to throw around in the name of a tax write-off. Artificial environments and garish costumes have denoted the red light district everywhere in the world that I have ever seen. Phoniness and how-can-I-impress-you-now pervade the atmosphere so bad it chokes you.
Anybody connected to motorsports today because he loves engines and wants to see how his mechanical skills stack up is invisible in such a perverted atmosphere of people who have sold out everything for the almighty buck, which is therefore the lifeblood of the community that has completely lost its reason for being.
Ingenuity and originality are completely discounted to the point of being shunned and seen as a threat to the peace and progress of the establishment.
WHAT? Joe Schmerd has made an innovation that lets him win?
- It doesn't cost anything?
- Nobody in California manufactured it?
- No contingency prize money?
- Well to heck with him.
- He's disqualified.
- Who does he think he is, anyway?
EJ Potter
