Sorry if I don't value the opinion of a guy who clearly saw a player in the title chase and at least one other racer have their races ruined in the first corners.
Fine, you don't value my opinion. I'm not losing any sleep over that. However, everyone else in the league was also telling you the same thing and you responded by calling them
"crazy" and insisting that your son had nothing to do with the incident. You continued on to label me as
"untrustworthy" and
"obviously not trying to run a clean and fair series" for allowing a series finale to stand in which everyone smashed into the wall on the first turn. Even when I provided
video proof that your slanderous accusations were completely misguided, you could only bring yourself to say that your son "apparently" lagged. But I know your type. It's simply not in your DNA to apologize or to admit when you're wrong. It's always everyone else's fault and never your own.
Never did mention that Nate was also cheated out of a qualifying spot on pole in another race that he never cried about. Apparently you forgot to set the reg for fastest first or something? So not feeling like I could trust you.
The fact that you claim your son was
"cheated" speaks volumes about your personality. It simply wreaks of the entitled mindset of
"me! me! me!" First of all, you son was not "cheated" out of any pole position because he never earned a pole position to begin with. I earned the pole for the first round, aubdogg won pole for the second round, and Screaming Chief earned the pole for the third round. Your son claiming that he won a pole was simply a kid exaggerating something to impress his father a little bit. That's what kids do. But since I'm sure you believe your son over someone "untrustworthy" like me, just let me know if you need video proof again. What's even more ironic about your son's claim is that me forgetting to change the grid order to "Fastest First" did more damage to Screaming Chief than it did to your son because it meant that Screaming Chief was the one who had to start at the back of the pack and
behind your son. The biggest victim of my error was Screaming Chief, not your son. But did Screaming Chief complain about it? Not one bit.
Speaking of Screaming Chief, there was no question that he was the fastest driver in the field on Sunday night. He had the points lead all night long until I accidentally wrecked him in the second race of Round 3. In fact, that was the only reason he started so far up the grid on the last race (since it was reverse grid). Going into the last race, he was actually in a great position to win the championship that night - but your son's lag ended that chance. Look at
my video again and fast forward to the 2:05 mark. You will see Screaming Chief swerve to try to avoid contact with your son's lag-boosted and out of control car. The fact that he had to lift off the throttle and swerve while at top speed, while simultaneously trying to navigate Eau Rouge, causes him to lose control and wreck. The point I'm making is that your son's lag-induced crash ended Screaming Chief's chances of winning the championship too. So if there was anyone who had a legitimate right to request a restart, it was him. He was the victim of
someone else's lag while your son was a victim of his
own lag. See the difference? But what's more relevant to this discussion is the fact that while your son's lag cost Screaming Chief the championship, he didn't complain for a single second. However, your son's own lag also cost your son a shot at the championship and just look at how you're handling it. Again, do you see the difference?
Please give me an explanation as to why a restart was impossible or not in order? I already know you saw it in race when it happened. You said so yourself and were sure of Nathan's lag from the start. You knew what was up, but did nothing about it to fix the foul start.
I'll answer each of these questions/comments one by one:
Would restarting the race have been impossible? Not impossible, but definitely tedious and time consuming. If you've ever tried to restart a race where grid order is important, you know what a PITA it is and how long it takes to pull off. The main issue is trying to get the game to position the drivers on the grid in the correct order. We've tried all sorts of ways in the past to figure out how to artificially dictate where the game puts everyone on the grid, but it never works. We've tried entering the track in a certain order and we've also tried getting in a predetermined order on the track before ending the race to be cancelled, but neither strategy has ever worked for us. So the only solution when restarting a race is to wait for the race to start and tell everyone to hold the brake down and manually set the grid. So for the next five minutes, everyone flounders around the grid trying to get in the right order and with good spacing between everyone. Then comes the fun part - getting everyone to start at the same time. After it's all said and done, it winds up being a gigantic waste of time and usually not worth bothering with it in the first place. When you combine that with the fact that we were already more than half an hour past our 2-hour time limit and that there were already league members who were asking that we skip the last race altogether (it was 12:30am on the east coast), then you might be able to see that although restarting the race might not have been impossible, it was most definitely undesirable.
Was a restart in order? At the time, I was indifferent. However, I wasn't about to make that decision alone. As clearly exhibited by our league's format and voting process, decisions are made on a majority rules basis. That's why, after your son requested a restart, I simply asked the rest of the drivers if they wanted to grant your son's request. Not only did the majority not want a restart, not one single person thought it was necessary. The consensus was that although your son's wreck was unfortunate, lag is just part of the game and is nothing that warrants a restart. Of course, I bet you're now thinking that our league (which consists of members from around the country who've for the most part have never met each other) had a collective vendetta again your son. It's possible I guess, but I'm leaning more towards the possibility that we're just a group of laid guys who are mature enough to know that life isn't always fair, and that people should be able to handle situations where things don't go their way. Unfortunately, that simply isn't the case with you.
Did I see it in race when it happened? Yes, of course I did. What I saw was your son pass me up and crash in to a wall up ahead. However, I've see that happen too many times to count. While I'll certainly admit that I was surprised by how much speed he was able get, in reality I was just jealous of how someone could get such good speed exiting that tight hairpin!
Did I know it was caused by lag? How could I have? Like I said in the S.N.A.I.L. thread, once I reviewed the replay, I was shocked. I had
never ever seen anything like that before. Not even anything remotely close. The only experience I've ever had with lag is when a car in front of me seems to jump around the screen. I've never seen, let alone heard of, a situation when lag provides a turbo boost to a car.
Was I sure of your son's lag from the start? Absolutely not. Please point out to me the exact post or thread in which I said that I was sure of your son's lag from the start. Otherwise, I'd appreciate it if you stopped putting words in my mouth. The first time I sure I was 100% sure of your sons lag was when you posted
your video and proclaimed that cars teleporting around a screen was no way to end a race series. I literally laughed out loud at the fact that you actually thought that was what the rest of us saw on our screens. I admit that emotions got the best of me when I called you "clueless", but in reality, you were indeed lacking a lot of information about the matter. What was even more surprising was that you could believe what you believed in the first place. Anyone with an ounce of deductive reasoning capabilities (aka common sense) would be able to conclude that if everyone
else is teleporting around his screen, then he himself is the one who is severely lagging and isn't seeing what's actually happening in reality.
One last thing.. I'd like to call you out on the fact that you felt it was necessary to brag about setting the fast laps that night you joined me and livetiludye in my lounge. I clearly recall casually driving behind you as I tried to explain our league's format to you and how we voted at the end of the night etc. As I chatted away, I lifted off the throttle over and over and over to maintain the gap behind you. The reason I recall this so clearly is because I remember thinking to myself that the last thing I wanted to do was to pass and potentially wreck a person who was showing interest in our league. I also didn't want to risk causing contact while I was simultaneously trying to explain that clean driving, not winning, was the most important pillar of our league. The fact that you would later go out of your way to brag about setting fast laps there tells me all I'll ever need to know about your personality (not to mention what it tells me about your pace lol). You are (whether you like to admit it or not) a hypercompetitive person. This's the only way to explain why you would go
out of your way to brag about setting fast laps in an environment when
nobody was even competing with you. On top of that, you added another post to brag about how you spend time with your son longboarding. In every post you make trying to look for a group of drivers to race with, you claim that winning isn't important to you. However, considering all the bragging you do and the resentment that you have about your son not winning, it seems like winning is actually
very important to you. All your claims of "winning races is not my goal" is obviously just a pride-protecting way to explain to yourself (and possibly your son) why you hardly win any races at all.
One thing I said to you the night you joined my lounge stands out above all else. I told you, and I quote, "Our league isn't about winning races, it's about having a good time racing with friends". Considering that I said that to you, isn't it ironic how things turned out between us? Of course, we can go back and forth on this forever - we simply have different viewpoints and different personalities. However, I can't spend any more time debating with you. I've still got lots of xmas shopping to do and there's simply not enough time in the day for this. I already feel like a loser for even taking the time to type this out (a common saying comparing arguing on the internet with running in the Special Olympics comes to mind). We'll just have to agree to disagree. But, if there's one thing we
can agree on, it's that our league is not the right fit for you, and you are not the right fit for our league. That being said, I wish you all the luck with your new league. Everyone deserves a chance to enjoy this great game with other like-minded drivers because that's when it's truly enjoyed the most. That simple belief is why we started the S.N.A.I.L. in the first place. Therefore I fully understand (and in fact respect) your desire to do the same for you and your son. Good luck on that quest and I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
