The Bottom Level of the Pyramid of Speed
This was sent to me.
Thought you might enjoy.
February
2002
The
Pyramid of
Speed
"Listen here
cone-dodger, why don't you save it and post your racing resume on Hot-Jobs.com?
Maybe there's a Wal-Mart manager somewhere who'll need you to drive the
golf-kart for parking lot security. They can use a guy like you to dodge the
cones and shopping carts. In the mean time, I suggest you and Sofranas bring
some cones and throw them on the track the night before to confuse the real
drivers out there."
"Do
those autocross guys ever go over 60 mph?"
My comments are the following,
illustrated graphically via The Pyramid of Speed. I just copyrighted that
term, along with the Go-Fast Crack Pipe, so if any of you semi-non-creative
types out there rip off my sayings and claim them for your own, I will sick the
Zen Five Lawyers on you, like we did for that other group that believes in
multiple track events. (Note: Actually, I think BP was the originator of
the "Go-Fast Crack Pipe", but I copyrighted it before he did). PMUM gets
the copyright for "Cone Dodger". I may have talked about the "levels" of
The Pyramid of Speed on this website somewhere in another story, but I can't
find it right now through the 200 megabytes of files on this website , so I will
repeat it.
So here goes my theory:
The Bottom Level of the Pyramid of Speed
Street Racers:
These are those immature (usually illegal border jumper) yahoos that you see trying
to do smoky burnouts on city streets in their lowered Honda's \ Mitsubishi's \
etc., which they spent more cash "trying" to look cool, but only end
up looking like.....well....illegal border jumpers. They look around for deserted industrial
areas so they can "Race" each other in a straight line. They think
NOS is cool. They think the "Fast and Furious" is a shoe-in for an Oscar, both
for best picture, best actor, and best documentary. They post on various
Internet BBS boards short stories talking about their "Victories", where they went
0-60 faster than some soccer Mom in an SUV.
Favorite
type of woman: Any sixteen year old (or younger) female who hangs out at those Import
car shows and will show some skin, never mind that her skin is pimply and she probably has deceases they don't even have names for yet.
Favorite Magazine: Import Tuner. Sport Compact
Car. Turbo Digest. NOS World.
Level 2 of the Pyramid of Speed
Freeway Racers:
Next to the bottom are these clowns. They frown upon Street Racers, thinking that Street Racers are 0-60
mph wimps.
Instead, Freeway Racers think that they are cool, as they go
120+ mph and weave in and out of traffic on the highway like a bunch of morons
on crystal meth. The problem is that these boneheads have spent money to
make their car a little faster and a little noisier than usual, but they forgot
one thing: they are going at dangerously high speeds and they have itty
bitty front brakes, small rear drum brakes, and they have never competed on an
actual road racing circuit. They forgot the Stop-Fast parts when they modified
their cars. Not good when Sally Homemaker in her 6000 lbs SUV makes a lane
change at 55 mph without signaling and without looking for cars coming up on her
at triple digit speeds. They post on various BBS boards about their
"Victories", where they passed some guy driving a more expensive car at 110 mph,
saying that they knew that "Name_your_Car" drivers can't drive worth a
crap.
Favorite type of woman: Any
drunk female that is impressed by them
driving 100 mph with a beer in their hand, a joint in the other, and no seat
belt on. Needless to say, these guys are usually dateless.
Favorite
magazine: High Times. Mad Magazine.
Level 3 of the Pyramid of Speed
1/4 Mile Drag Racers:
Next up are the 1/4 mile drag
racers. These guys are at least smart enough to take their cars to a
formal race track where there are rules, safety regulations, and ambulances for
when they crash because they can't figure out how to drive in a straight
line. They look down upon the Freeway "Racers" and Street "Racers" as a
bunch of immature folks who don't have enough sense to take their need for speed
to their local 1/4 mile drag strip. Instead, these 1/4 mile geeks spend
their life trying to break the 12 second barrier in their souped up street
cars. Sometimes they might even get four runs in a day, and at 13 seconds
a run, this means they spent the whole day at the track for 52 seconds of
"racing" fun. Kinda like spending $200 on a dinner date, and having
premature ejaculation at the dinner table.
Favorite type of
woman: Any female that has teeth.
Favorite magazine:
Hot Rod, Car Craft, Hemi World.
Level 4 of the Pyramid of Speed
Autocrossers:
Next, we have the autocrossers. A special
breed among themselves. They frown on the illegal freeway and street
racers as reckless morons. They laugh at the 1/4 mile Drag Racers, as
those goons who can only go fast in a straight line. Hell, you can probably
get a monkey or a 90 year old grandmother that can stomp on the gas and make
three shifts in 12 seconds without crashing. Reaction speed of drag racers
on the start? Shit....reaction speed to autocrossers is learning a 15 turn
autocross course the first time by driving out there and not hitting any
freaking cones, and making some dramatic left-right-left turns without spinning
out (despite the fact that they are going at a breathtaking 35 mph!)
Favorite type of woman: A female who has the whole day to burn,
and can stand a safety cone upright, as they sucker them into being cone-corner
workers.
Favorite magazine: The SCCA's SportsCar magazine
and the SCCA FastTrack, so they can obey the Rule Nazi's and read and interpret drivel
such as this. These idiots actually like reading a 3" thick book of rules about
how to go around cones at 35 mph!
Level 5 of the Pyramid of Speed
Time Trialers:
Next, we have the Time Trialers, meaning
the people who take their car to road racing courses. Also known as
"lapping days". These people are thrown on a road racing track with about
20 other cars, and they are only allowed to pass in the straightaways.
They look down upon the illegal Street "Racers" and Freeway "Racers" for obvious
reasons. They laugh at the drag racers who can only go in the straight
line. They shake their head at the autocrossers, as why would someone want
to spend all day in a parking lot to do five runs on a 15 turn course lined with
safety cones, and each run only lasts 60 seconds and you never get out of 2nd
gear? Hell, at a Time Trial event or lapping day, you may get 60+ laps
around a world famous road course, which is 30 times more "seat time" than you
get in autocrossing! Plus, in autocrossing, they may disallow your time
because your tire is a quarter inch too wide, or you put a different brake pad
on, or your springs on your car are a half inch too low. Autocross is
racing, but racing Taliban-style, with 1000's of rules of what you can do or not
do.
Favorite type of woman: Females who think that their man
is a "Racer", since his car actually made it to the pavement of a race
track. Never mind that the clown spun his car four times in one day and got
dust all over the interior of the car. She is convinced that she dates
"Macho Racer".
Favorite Magazine: Road and Track, Car and Driver,
Automobile, Motor Trend.
The Top Level of the Pyramid of Speed
"Open Wheel" Wheel-to-Wheel Racers:
The Wheel-to-Wheel racers (Especially open wheelers) are at
the top of the pyramid. They have big heads, big egos, they think they are
cool, and they can be tremendously condescending. Some even have the gall
to have their own website touting their latest "racing adventures".
They think Street Racers are just illegal second class citizens, and that the Fast and The Furious is the second stupidest movie they've ever seen, with Driven being the dumbest. Open Wheel Racers don't acknowledge Street Racers as actual humans, but they view them as some lower form of sub-species where the DNA just didn't quite mix correctly.
Freeway racers are viewed as unskilled morons, but Wheel-to-Wheel racers have been known to occasionally "bait" the Freeway Racers into following them through an off ramp at triple digits speeds, and when the Freeway Racer suddenly realizes that he can't control his car that fast in a turn, the Freeway Racer panics, hits the brakes hard while turning, and ends up spinning and crashing into the guard rail, while the Wheel-to-Wheel racer looks in his rear view mirror, and calmly puts another mark on his dashboard, keeping score of "reverse-kills".
1/4 Mile Drag racers are viewed as unskilled folks who can only shift up, and cannot figure out how to master a proper heel-and-toe downshift without grinding the tranny.
Autocrossers are viewed as cross dressers who think that danger and excitement is narrowly missing a plastic safety cone by two inches at 35 mph, and live by a rule book about their car specs that is bigger than the Bible. There is a lot of risk and danger in autocrossing.....hell, if you screw up, you could end up with a couple of plastic safety cones tangled up in your front grill. Did Ayrton Senna autocross? Would he ever spend time dodging safety cones? Did Michael Schumacher make it to Formula One as a nineteen year old by driving solo in a parking lot? Hell no, Michael made the leap to Formula One because he was doing wheel-to-wheel Racing, not by driving around stationary cones. If autocross was really exciting, you would see the Cone Dodger's National Championships on ESPN or Speedvision. But no use having an autocross on TV because, uh...quite frankly, no one cares.....
Time trialers are viewed as wanna-be's that can't figure out how to
control their car well enough to maneuver in between two other cars at 100 mph
in a turn without causing a three car wreck. For it is only the
Wheel-To-Wheel racer that can put their car within inches of an apex at 110 mph, can
brake within inches of their target braking point at 140 mph at the last
possible instant without locking up the brakes into ABS or flat spotting tires,
that can be within inches of another car going into a 100+ mph turn and
fighting for position on the pavement, and can control understeer or oversteer
with the pedal to the metal coming out of an apex and using the last inch of
pavement exiting out of a turn to keep the car from spinning off into the dirt
or into the surrounding cement walls. If a wheel-to-wheel racer makes a
mistake, his car will probably be severely wrecked, other cars could be wrecked,
and he could potentially take out half the cars entered in the event with him
going into Turn 1 at the start of a race.
Favorite type of women:
Hot, sexy women who know that all the other "racers" in the lower levels of the
Pyramid of Speed are all really just "wanna-be-wheel-to-wheel racers". A
woman with a good stock portfolio is highly desirable, because Wheel-to-Wheel
racing is uhm.....about five times more expensive than any other level on the
Pyramid, as your car will break down more, the parts you need to go fast are
more expensive, you blow through rear tires every weekend, you probably have to
have a truck and trailer to tow the car, you need an extensive pit crew help to
keep the car running that that you over modified in your thermonuclear war with
other people to get to the top of the podium.
Favorite Magazine:
Formula One Magazine as each month they have in depth coverage of the only true sport left
in the world, which is Formula One wheel-to-wheel racing. Everything else
in life is just a game......
So the question remains: Where do you fit on the Pyramid of Speed? For all you people who think you're macho racer, just bite the bullet, and go get an open wheel race car, learn how to control your car a little better, and let's battle it out on the top level of the Pyramid, while we gaze down, with pity, upon all the other "pseudo-racers" from our perch high on top of the Pyramid.....
