Don't Race

A brief aside, before I begin the post-proper: as much fun as it is to write cute "here's what I had for breakfast" posts, I'd much rather compose a commentary on the human condition. They're inevitably more controversial, more preachy, and more likely wrong... still, they're most representative of "25 Year Old Don", and so they're what I'll want to read 50 years from now.

I use "human condition" as a catch-all, and in such cases as the following, it is too broad a term. Maybe not all people act the way my prototype does, not everyone has the same primal compulsions. In my circle of friends, though - in fact, in all of my circles of friends - just about everyone fits a certain mold.

What mold? I shall explain by way of an anecdote:

One of the bike races for which I registered, paid, and showed up was the criterium at University of Delaware. However, I chose not to start the race. The course design was downright stupid, with a dangerous corner at the bottom of a fast descent. The race was delayed before I even started warming up because the Newark, DE area ran out of ambulances. That's how many brutal crashes there were in that corner.

Rather than reverse the direction of the race, as had been suggested by spectators, racers, and officials alike, the organizers chose to continue running their ridiculous shitshow in the wrong direction. Acknowledging the danger in the corner, though, they dispatched the head official to stand in the grass near the beginning of the corner.

My peers and I watched in dismay as one of the most respected figures in Northeastern cycling shouted, over and over, to slow down. Once every minute or two, the pack would come charging down the hill, and he would wave his arms and bellow "Easy, easy!" To no one's surprise, it had ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT.

My prototype is a competitive person. He races his bicycle, and I do mean RACES. Not because it keeps him fit, not because he relishes the camaraderie of a like-minded pack, and certainly not because it justifies all the training miles. He races because you just can't win training rides. The competition is the end for which the remainder is all simply a means.

You can't tell a competitive person not to compete. Sure, with some discipline, my prototype can suppress his instincts, but even buried, they still lurk below the surface. That which drives him will not be snuffed out by shouting "slow down!".


Mark's Jenna, from what I know about her, is a lot like my prototype. She's a racy lady, the sort to chase people down rather than cruise through. That's how she kicked ass at Hibernia, as best as I can surmise. Not on fitness alone, but on competition.

Imagine her dismay to find that her next event, the More/Fitness Half-Marathon, had been neutered by race organizers (wordplay alert! this event was for women only). The unseasonal heat was cause enough for the powers-that-be to cancel the Marathon and turn the Half into a "fun run". The course would be the same length, but the clocks would be turned off. Competitors would not be Competitors, but Participants. In this way, the dangers of excessive heat would be mitigated, because nobody would be inclined to compete.

This rationale is so absurd as to offend. Even if the "Participants" had actually listened to instructions to treat the event as a Fun Run, even if they didn't have wristwatches with which to time themselves, they were surrounded by rabbits and chasers! Those among them who fit my prototype - many, if not most, presumably - would find competition at every step, and they would race.


A final example comes from the world of motorsports, in which I have taken a passing, passive interest. In late April, there was a terrible wreck at Talladega, in which a car going nearly 200 mph flipped upside down and flew toward the stands.

Here's the video, because I know you're curious...


The circumstances that led to this near-tragedy are somewhat unique to the world of NASCAR, and to this track in particular, but they're worth a brief review.

When engine technology raised speeds well above 200 mph at this superspeedway in the late 80s, NASCAR mandated a "restrictor plate", which limits the horsepower of cars and prioritizes drafting. Ed Hinton explains better from here:

Plate racing causes such tight packs of cars that multicar crashes are almost inevitable -- there were two such "big ones" Sunday, before Edwards' crash at the checkered flag.

The restrictions have opened a whole set of complex rules, such as forbidding passing below the yellow line at Talladega. When Brad Keselowski [09 in the above video] tried to pass Edwards at the checkered flag, and Edwards [99] moved down to block, Keselowski knew he would be penalized if he went below the yellow line.

So he chose to wreck Edwards instead. Which, believe it or not, is acceptable procedure in plate racing.

Having narrowly averted the unimaginable consequences of a 3000 lb car, shredded into 150mph shrapnel by steel fencing, decimating the capacity crowd at the Talladega track, NASCAR higher-ups immediately began proposing solutions.

The most frequent suggestion was to enforce penalties with more severity, as a disincentive for aggressive driving. It's a good suggestion, if penalties are applied with uniformity and predictability. Consistent administration of consequences has not always been a strong suit of any sport ever, because after all, the officials are human.

You've read this far in the post, so you know how I feel about the stricter-enforcement proposal. One of the most successful NASCAR drivers, Jimmie Johnson, put it best:

"Officials] can talk until they're blue in the face up there, but when we get in those cars we're going to race and try to get position. Regardless of the ass-chewing we get before we pull on the track, you're going to do what you have to do to win."

It's a lesson of which I've been increasingly aware in the past year, for a variety of reasons - in sports, in club administration, in teaching. Andy Kessler wrote in Forbes about the "inevitability of internet piracy". People will try to get the most of what's available to them, by whatever means they must. If there is any flexibility in a boundary, any opportunity to squeeze just a little more out of the rules, they will take it. You can't threaten water into one end of a basin, you can only expect it to fill its container.

That people will look for advantages is only a problem if you don't expect and accept it. It's not a bad thing... it's a human thing. Successful administration comes down to forethought - course design in racing, homework assignments in education, etc.

Of course, realizing this is not the same as implementing it. We'll see how I do when the time comes.