Quote from george_tsiros :

If you were serious, i am serious as well.:mad:
If you were not serious, i was not serious either.

OK, well that sounds like a good arrangement.

For the record, George, I was not serious. My comment was not meant to be nasty, it wasn't even meant as sarcasm. I was trying to make a joke, based on the idea that you seemed interested in high speeds at all times and were wondering whether there was really a need for such things as safety cars. (I realize this is a simplistic caricature of your views, that was part of the joke.)

I have no negative feelings towards you and I have appreciated some of your comments in other threads. I would have hoped that my positive replies to some of your other comments would have clued you in that I was only joking here, but sadly it seems not.

It was never my intention to belittle or attack you. You seem like an intense guy who asks questions about things that others take for granted; that's a great characteristic to have. I am going to assume that your problem in picking up a little gently teasing humour is related to this being the internet and English presumably not being your first language.

So, good luck to you, and keep asking questions. For future reference, if I want to insult or attack you -- well, I can't see why that would happen -- but if I did, there would be no smilies in the post.

Cheers,
--J.

I am glad this is all sorted out. Indeed english is not my native tongue, but i've been using it since... 5? 6? anyway.I am really glad you are not the type of guy i initialy feared you'd be. You can understand the reason for my defensive/offensive post, now. I am sorry for not remembering your other posts, there are so many people here. I could say that you should be more careful in your comical posts, but i should be more careful in my replies as well.

Quote from george_tsiros :

I claim that F1 drivers have both the ability and common sense to drive SLOW and safely, without the addition of the safety car. I am possibly wrong, but you gotta admit that F1 drivers do have the ability and common sense to slow down. They slow down when entering the pits. They obey that. A similar thing could hold for the case i am describing. It seems that they decided that the safety car is something like a "failsafe".

It didn't work before the safety car was introduced, I doubt it will work now. Plus, it's not about the common sense, it's about winning. Sure a driver knows he should not speed through wreckage, but if your opponent does it, you will too. Same thing in NASCAR - until recently, a yellow flag didn't take effect until you crossed the start/finish line. Since the start of NASCAR, there was a gentleman's agreement that you didn't pass your opponent before crossing the line as it was seen as bad manners. That worked up until probably around '95 when drivers started taking advantage of this and kept the pedal through the floor while going through an area of track where a wreck was occuring to try to get ahead of their opponents. Several big impacts occured as a result of this carlessness, and I'm sure some injuries aswell. This prompet NASCAR to introduce a new rule where the field's positions would be frozen when the yellow flag flew, instead of when a car crossed the line. That's probably the only sensible rule NASCAR has passed in recent years... (Oh, and the mandate of the HANS device, another good rule.)

Quote :

MAGGOT, i appreciate your honesty and well-meaning and i wholeheartedly agree with what you say, except for one thing: I have a great regard for safety and anyone who has ever been in my car will tell you so.

Good, I am glad I was wrong on that point. It's always good to know someone is a safe driver.

Quote from tristancliffe :

WRC events are not driven at full speed before the event, and are usually a bit long to memorise in one drive. But I long for the days hen real rally cars return, and drivers with balls and no co-driver. They were the days, and modern rallying is crap in comparison.

What "and no co-driver"? As far as I know co-drivers has been existed as long as rallying itself.

Quote from ajp71 :

Frankly a return of Group B cars on longer stages with less co-driver notes would force people to use common sense and push less hard and it would magically be safer and none of this overcrowded stages bullshit.

I agree. Too bad FIA is making rallying yet more boring instead of trying to make it even somehow like it was in the golden age. Crying for Group B back is of course just dreaming but I wouldn't really see any problems with 500 hp cars with modern security standards. Modern WRC cars are already much faster than Group B cars, so how a car that actually goes slower could be more dangerous. Of course more powerful cars would be harder to handle but wouldn't that just help to find out the best driver (and not the best car)? I think that principle is generally forgotten in modern motorsports with all the electronics, driving aids and stuff.

FIA has simply f*cked up rallying in last 5-10 years. I mean I would call rallying still in the 90's "real rallying" despite the fact that Group B was already dead. But they still had incredibly long rallies (I want Safari Rally back!) and cars didn't have electronic aids that does 50% of the driving like now.

With 5-10 year perioid I mean this evolution with these lame super rally rules*, 5 km über-short stages that are driven 2 times per day etc. I think this season has been the most ridiculous ever and very boring too. Only 3 factory teams (3 because Citroen is practically a factory team) must tell that FIA hasn't done something right.

* heard about next season's new rules? Afaik top 3 drivers of the day will get addiotional championship points. Looks like actually winning a rally means nothing in future.

Quote from deggis :

FIA has simply f*cked up rallying in last 5-10 years.

What hasn't the FIA f*cked up lately? (Of the series they run, obviously.)

Quote :

heard about next season's new rules? Afaik top 3 drivers of the day will get addiotional championship points. Looks like actually winning a rally means nothing in future.

My dad was saying that race winners should get double the points they do now, in all series. Winning a championship should require race wins, not consisten second places. And I agree to a point. Races would be more interesting if every driver tried to win every race, rather than settle for a 5th place to win the championship.

What they don't tell you is that infact to make rally driving a bit more intense (because I mean it's just so dull otherwise) that the drivers are in fact blind, and hence why the co-drivers just shout "left", "right", "brake" and "open your eyes you ignorant old fool before you get us killed!" in their made up languages (otherwise somebody would understand what's going on, and get rally driving banned).

Aha! I knew there was something going on!

ever play a rally game george?

if not, go download the demo for CMR and that guy yelling stuff... would be the codriver, and i can assure you, without a codriver ... the driver would be as lost as you would be on a track no matter how many times you drive it

Quote from george_tsiros :

I could say that you should be more careful in your comical posts...

Fair point, absolutely correct. I will try to avoid stuff that could be misinterpreted in future. I too am glad this is sorted out.