VIEW FROM THE TAILGATE
by Carl Rackoff
Officials - It's Not Always being on the Dark Side
Some of the people in the racing world think that when or if you are an
official in racing or any other sport you went over to The Dark Side
and all you want to do is give everyone a hard time and bust your tail about
some BS things. Not true – we live in a world of gray areas
and sometimes as racers, we try to push the envelope whether it is on the
track, in the pits or on the racecar, we all try to get that edge over the
competition. I’ve been there, done that and let me tell you that officiating
is not all it’s cracked up to be. Most of us have to be concerned with just
one type of race vehicle and one division. Try watching over multiple
divisions and hundreds of race vehicles at one time, even on a good day, its
tough enough. As an official, most of the time you are the first ones to
arrive and the last ones to leave and from the time you unlock the back gate
there is someone with some type of problem that is the most important thing
to them and you have nothing to take care of but their problem. And when we
as the racers get caught in or out of that gray area, they
tend to think that all of those official suck because we try to push the
envelope and get caught with our hands in the cookie jar. Trust me the
day that one of the other competitors get caught he or she will think the
same about the officials.
Surprisingly most officials are racers and enjoy racing as much as the
next person and even try to push the envelope at times themselves. Over the
years, I had heard many of the excuses and complaints, and here are some of
my favorites:
#10 I am just the driver.
# 9 It was legal last year.
# 8 Well if I was an official, I would let it go.
# 7 It’s not in the rules.
# 6 I don’t break the rules, I bend them.
# 5 I have it on tape, don’t you want to see it.
# 4 Your scorers do not know what they are doing up there.
# 3 You think you’re GOD!
# 2 What are you F*%#@;$G blind. (note: profanity will not get you
anywhere)
And my all-time favorite:
#1 It’s our job to cheat and the officials job to catch us.
I know that there are hundreds more that we all can
think of.
So feel free to leave some of you best excuses you have
used or heard over the years.
P.S. Please when leaving your reply we prefer you do
not name names or use profanity.
Nevertheless, these are just my views from the tailgate.
Carl Rackoff
Want to voice your opinion, check out our forum thread on this week's View from the Tailgate by going to:
http://www.racerhub.com/forum/showthread.php?p=40035
Want to comment to directly to Carl? E-mail him at CRackoff@longislandjam.com.
