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Man it’s still cold out. I haven’t even thought of going out to the garage to work on the car. All of my plans and good intentions have not gotten done. The race season this year is going to be a bit different. Usually we start with the Lime Rock race in May. Now that race is being held in September because Grand Am or American LeMans Series is racing there in May. So now we don’t race until the Glen Race in June. Then not until August when we have the Mosport Race at the beginning of the month, the Summit Point Race has been moved to mid-August, then Labor Day at Road America and finally Lime Rock in mid-September. It will be a busy 2 months to say the least. We just have to hope nothing happens to the car that can’t be fixed in 2 weeks. The good news is that we may have time to do the 3-day DE at Tremblant in July. I haven’t been there since we held an event on the original track before the renovations. I would like to take this month to present a couple of problems I have with the internet. First I cannot whine enough about spam. The endless bombardment with porn, pills, penises, percentage rates and countless other totally useless topics. The problem has affected a recent board decision about credit card registration and fees on the NER website. Some of the emails had the word CREDIT CARD or $$$ in the subject area. A couple of board members were not getting the emails because they had entered those key words into their spam controller. Well, how often do you get spam about credit cards or money that you wish you hadn’t? Now the spammers have seemed to find a way to get around those spam controls. I don’t know how someone was able to figure this out. I suppose they think there are no illiterate people using spam control. I personally don’t use any spam control because my clients send me a lot of emails that contain marketing info in the title. I also do private label packaging for Timex, AVON and First Alert. Last thing I need is to not start a rush project for AVON because it found its way to my spam pool. I suppose what I find most confusing is that most people do whatever they can to prevent any spam from reaching them. Yet the spammers are spending more and more time trying to figure out how to trick our spam controls and continue hitting us with this useless drivel. Are they aware that if a piece of spam gets through it will only be trashed?They should not worry about tricking the spam control because if you don’t have it you probably take advantage of the free airline tickets, penis enlargements, online dating, monthly refinancing, require lots of Viagra or Valium, and just about everything else offered through spam. Unfortunately I feel it will get much worse very soon. The other thing I wish to mention is the emailing of photos and mpeg movies. For the past two years as VP I have received countless emails containing photos and movie clips of on-track mishaps from members that wish to share something cool with me. Sometimes they are funny or good-natured and I enjoy them but some piss me off. Typically the ones that bother me are the on-track videos. There are a few types of on-track videos. First is the in-car video, which usually shows an extraordinary circumstance that the driver was involved in. These can be funny or even shocking. Why some of these videos are uploaded I will never understand. I would never have sent out my crash that occurred during the Watkins Glen Club Race. Perhaps they are shared with close friends that think it is OK to pass it on only to have it passed on again and again. I recently was sent a video clip from an SCCA guy still complaining about my SCCA article. Along with the sucky email he sarcastically asked me if this video was of a Porsche event. It showed a 911 driver (with instructor) at Lime Rock. As the driver made the right-hand turn onto the Uphill the car pitched to the left and rolled into the infield. Now the reason the SCCA guy sent this to me was to mock my impression that SCCA Racing is rough. What he hasn’t taken into consideration is the drivers less than happy emotions due to the trashing of his (or maybe a buddy’s) car. I can only assume he hoped it was me in the video. Another situation involved an email sent around by PCA member that doesn’t club race. The subject of the email was something like, “The incorrect way to overtake”. The incident in the video took place at the 2002 Club race at Lime Rock. Now the person that sent the email probably should have thought, hmmm a track full of Cup Cars, I wonder if any of the drivers are PCA members? He also should have thought hmmm this might be someone close to a number of people in the club in particular to someone I send this to. He would have been right on both accounts. The video showed an obvious screw-up by one of the Cup Car drivers in Big Bend. Now I was at that race and I know the driver that screwed up. He’s a great guy and a great driver. He just made a mistake and is paying for it by remembering that his screw-up took someone else out of the race and not being able to fix the car right away. Every race driver knows that someday they will make a bonehead move. The only thing that we don’t wish is to involve any other innocent driver in our screw-ups. Imagine this driver accidentally getting this email showing his own screw-up. How embarrassing! And how inconsiderate. My suggestion is to think twice before sending emails that may involve people that may see it. There are of course good things to send. I received a very funny clip of a European Energy Bar commercial. It showed a guy jogging on an obvious mountain road only to come to his red 911 Targa parked by the side of the road. He leaned up against the car to stretch his calves. About this time a truck driver (eating the energy bar) pulls over and thinking the guy is trying to push the car over the cliff gets out and pushes the car over and it rolls down this mountain side. He then gets back in his truck and drives off. The poor jogger just stands there with his mouth wide open as his baby rolls down the mountain. That was Funny! So next time you send out video of something you witnessed or were involved in just remember it could travel around the world in a few short days. Some guy in Tibet is sitting there laughing watch your video as you roll your car at Lime Rock. You never see get to see video of Himalayan goat farmers in any unfortunate mishaps. Anyway, I think I have vented enough for this month. I just received another in-car mpeg. It could be you! See ya! |
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