No offense.

One thing that no one will ever hear during a race is me keying up the mic and demeaning someone for being an idiot, driving like a tool, driving with their head up their ass, doing something stupid, criticizing someone, or anything else of the like. In short, you’re never going to hear much from me in a race.

Not that I’m not thinking those things, or saying them to my monitor, or saying them to some unfortunate friends who happen to be on our TeamSpeak server at the time. Many times I am, and many times some people are driving like idiots.

Fair enough, but I won’t key that mic up for a few reasons.

1) I have absolutely no room to say a word to anyone. Zero. My SR might be below 2 on both oval and road, but I’ve done some pretty forgettable things on the track that caused wrecks over the years. I’ve spun people out in the pacing line. IN THE PACING LINE! I’ve dive-bombed people into a corner and took them out. I’ve forced a 3-wide in places where 3-wide racing is asinine, and wrecked ‘em both. I’ve punted people off the track. I’ve once wrecked 24 cars at Talladega in a single bound! I’ve tried to pass in a set of esses, wrecking us both. I’ve wrecked people on pit road. I’ve self-spun in front of the leaders and collected both of them. I’ve drifted off the low line and checked people up into the wall. And there’s more to that list that I choose to forget.

All of my "hall of shame" moments were unintentional accidents. Just me doing something stupid, or me “running out of talent,” or me just getting an acute case of the morons. I pride myself on being clean, so I felt horrible about all of those things after they happened. Many times I’ve parked it after I've wrecked someone, essentially DQ’ing myself for driving like an fool.

Since I’ve done all of that stuff, and I know how it feels, and I know that it wasn’t intentional, how on Earth would that give me any right to jump on chat and browbeat someone for doing .... exactly what I have done myself in the past and will probably do again? How would I have any room to talk? Hello Pot, it’s Kettle calling. Yup, we’re both still black!

I know that whoever just wrecked me didn’t mean to do it, and they probably feel bad about it whether they convey an apology or not. I know, because I’ve been there, I’ve done it too, we all have. There’s no need for me to point out that what they did was stupid, because they already know that. Duh.

2) Nobody else in the race wants to hear it.

3) No matter how it happens, you sound like a whiny little baby when you complain about getting run into. I’m sorry, that’s what it sounds like. Honestly. Ask anybody. It’s something with the emotions in the voice, but no matter what tone of voice the bitcher has, at that moment, it sounds like whining. Even Emperor Palpatine would sound like he’s having a whiny little bitch fit. “Your feeble skills just destroyed my car, that which the power of the dark siiiide cannot even rectify... n00b.” Close, partially menacing, but still mostly whining.

4) Nobody else in the race wants to hear that either.

5) The thing that I would chastise someone for doing is the very thing I’d probably turn around and accidentally do a race later, or even in that very race. That, my friends, would truly make me look like an imbecile.

In conclusion, keep your damn mouth shut. Nobody wants to hear it, they didn’t mean it, and you don’t do yourself any favors by calling people out. I’m a laid back happy-go-lucky guy, but I’m just getting tired of hearing this crap in races and reading about it in the forum. It makes iRacing unappealing when people think that every little mistake is going to be met by an arrogant tongue-lashing. So I apologize, but all of this had to be said.

The only people who have any right to reprimand someone for making a mistake are those who have never made any. Luckily, I have that list of drivers. They are as follows.....

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