Respect replaced by Selfishness...
In the last week I've seen 2 incidents involving younger drivers that disappointed me. The first was Booby Price at the N/S race and the worst part was his fans defending him and applauding his maneuver. One fan even described the move as, "graceful"... Graceful, really? What would you consider a slap in the face? A kind gesture perhaps. Now Booby throwing sliders, taking racers noses off and parking on the cushion is his MO, thats just how he thinks you should race. Its also why his car rarely comes home with a quarter panel on the RR, I'm not sure why they bother putting one back on it. Make no mistake, the young man is fast, talented even, but the disrespect he drives with, "feeding people the RR" every week, that isn't cool.
Boo on you Booby Price.
The second incident was with one of my favorite drivers, Jonathan Davenport at Bulls Gap. First he had a physical incident with Bloomer that even though I watched it a few times I can't determine from that camera angle what exactly happened. Later on though, JD is leading and JO gets a run on the outside. JO gets all the way up to JD's door on the outside as they approach a lap car at the end of the back stretch. Instead of lifting or going to the bottom, JD literally drives through the lap car... What? The lap car didn't even know he was there yet, so drilling him at full song was what looked like an act of desperation or bullying...
Not cool JD, not cool. Nobody likes a bully.
To me both of the incidents were indicative of a wider problem in motorsports and our society at large, the younger generation doesn't see anyone else as having any rights, its all about them and their young gun status. Driving through the field like a bulldozer is not a demonstration of skill, but an extreme display of disrespect for other racers and themselves. This is not how to race, no it absolutely is not.
Sure we love seeing them sparking off the outside wall, throwing caution to the wind, taking chances. But driving like no one else should be there is wrong. Sometimes there are situations where you must back off or use skill instead throwing elbows. Both these guys are plenty skilled enough and have the best equipment around, that they should be making better decisions behind the wheel, period.
Its okay to be hungry, but you don't get to eat my hand.