The following is a conversation recently (within the last year) heard on Teamspeak during a heated night of racing at Daytona Road Course.
“Hey, Koalaty, I am coming up behind you so hold your line.”
“OK.”
“OK. I’m coming in below you.”
“You hit me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You hit me when you went by me and made me wreck.”
“No, I didn’t. I stayed low and was well past you when I moved up. I didn’t come anywhere near you.”
“Yes you did. You hit me and made me wreck. _WHACK-“
“What did you hit me for? I didn’t do anything. You wrecked yourself or someone else hit you.”
Then the worst part, my Teamspeak and TPRA friends offer their understanding support. “Way to go, Senior. You’re going to be sleeping on the sofa tonight – again! I thought you were faster than that, EH?”
Yeah, thanks Kartracer, and Ol’Timer, and FatLeadFoot, and Forgetful. Now you can stop laughing and I can get on with the racing after the cacophony dies down.
So comes the first lesson of racing online with your significant other – you are not racing someone anonymous that is halfway across the continent; she is sitting right beside you – within arms length and the justice is meted out swiftly and without compunction. She/he thinks you did wrong so you are gonna pay! Fortunately I was sitting in another chair so I could lean far enough away to dodge the second blow.
Note to self. Rotate the table so that you can put your Playstation setup on the opposite side of the table so she can no longer reach you with that wicked backhand or that ever so sharp elbow. Besides, I get distracted looking over at her display anyway – it’s bigger than mine!
Wait! I’m winded and I don’t know how all this got started. Oh, yeah. Now I remember.
I have always been involved with racing of some form since I was able to ride a bicycle, gaining skills which I later transferred to stock cars and motorcycles. When Koalaty and I got together 22 years ago, she shared my interest in racing so we got our SCCA licenses and headed toward Portland International Raceway. There we worked in every aspect of racing, but preferred and specialized in ”Flagging and Communications” and “First Response.” We’ve continued to share that interest through the years.
