[VaSteve]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

I don't organize or help run DE's at any level, for most of the same reasons I would never run or moderate a forum like this one. It seems many of those who participate are just too smart, just too good looking, just too special, for any of the common rules of decency to apply to them. They are all special cases who get special exceptions, who must have the finer points of propriety, restraint, and good manners continually explained to them. They neither "get it" nor see how any of that applies to them. They feel they are above all of that.

It is for such people that gentlemen - normally decent, understanding, moderate, quiet types need to come out with such absolutes. Gentlemen, not quite so full of themselves, don't need to hear these things. It remains axiomatic in most endeavors that many of "the rules" are made for those who don't "get it", who will never understand. Their egos preclude that. They inhabit forums like this and, unfortunately, they attend DE's. It's very clearly a case where the "gentleman's rules" that used to be implicit in such endeavors no longer are, so they must be spelled out - with attendant penalties - for those participants who neither "get it", nor are "gentlemen" about it. They cannot understand the "why" (and think it shouldn't apply to them, since they are so special), so those that do understand are forced into the rather un-gentlemanly position of having to make and enforce "official" rules that were once implicitly understood by one and all. Such is the price in a society where everyone is "special"...

I have worked the grid/steward position at our events on the east coast. People have gotten a little snotty with the lookover we do on the cars before they head out on the track. We have found many a helmet, hood or HANS unlatched. Our region (due to some arrangement with the flaggers) doesn't allow Go Pros or anything else suctioned to the glass. (Glued is OK). People get really pissy when you have them take it down. One guy had a giant GPS data logger. It was like a mini laptop almost. Anyway, last event, a guy broke a splitter off a GT3 and ran it over. It kicked up and smashed the glass of the car behind. If there was a suctioned cupped device, it would have been a projectile at 100+. Yow.

Common decency comes with not posting these photos. Do many folks take photos? Of course. Banged up cars on the internet let people gloat about rich guys with egos breaking their toys. I have seen many ego driven crashes, I have also seen people just in over their head and not have the capacity/seat time to deal with situations just yet.