Sim Racing Protests are Hurt Feelings Reports

Banging doors is a thing in gt3 racing

The 2022 GTD Daytona 24 was way more intense than this and I don’t think either Porsche factory drivers made a complaint to the stewards, media or to Porsche and I bet they enjoyed every second of that battle

I've been playing racing games for the last 12 years,

and I stopped playing online racing in 2016 because I stopped giving a shit about multiplayer bullshit and whiners.

been much happier since, recently got into Snowrunner and so far I've been enjoying it.

Context is everything, having done simracing for a few years in ACC now (Moreso in organised championships rather than just individual league races) you learn what's worth reporting and what isn't.

Some communities have newer drivers and if they make mistakes it just takes having a conversation with them about what happened and how to avoid it next time, generally trying to be supportive and not scaring them off. Sometimes it just takes an apology post-race and there's not enough harm to make it worth a report.
Sometimes though it significantly affects the race results and is worth giving/receiving a penalty for, I've had people I consider good friends still understandably report me when things went wrong, still friends afterwards. Received as many penalties as I have given/reported, shit happens and that's what the stewarding systems are for.
Just because some people aren't as passionate about it as others doesn't mean poor moves should be left unpunished or unaddressed, mistake or otherwise. If I were on the receiving end of the second incident in a championship I definitely would have filed a report. The first "incident" was a jobsworthy report to make and was definitely only worth the warning if anything.

FWIW, I am far less likely to make any reports over the individual league races because as mentioned, you can just sign up for the next one happening in 10-15 minutes, which gives you far less reason to care, usually loss of safety rating is punishment enough and making reports takes time I could be spending doing something else.

I think the collision physics in ACC do sometimes make door banging or bumps far worse, sometimes sending a car into a spin, off track or into the wall when IRL or another sim it would just be a light tap, doesn't help and does force cleaner racing to avoid incidents that are worse than they should be.

Speaking only from an iRacing perspective, if a protest is upheld it was legit.

Great video, watched the whole thing 👍

Man i wonder if road rage incidents have similar issues. I get people prevent me to merge in front of them even though i wasn't driving aggressive what so ever, its random sometimes.

After playing devil’s advocate though, I’ll share my overly sensitive sim racer encounter.

Last year I jumped into a TCR race on iRacing. About 10 minutes in I’m battling with a guy for somewhere in the mid field. It’s all fair, all clean, he’s putting up a fair defense, not being reactionary to me sticking my nose out, but for 3 laps or so I’m sat on his back bumper looking for a clean way around.

He starts throwing reactionary blocks on me as the battle drags on. Not too pleased with him I apply some more pressure, drive closer to him, and start flashing my headlights at him (oh yeah, night race. Forgot to mention).

He gets a bad run out of a corner, then swings out into my lane as I attempt to pass. I woah up to avoid a crash and give him another flash of the lights. He proceeds to slam on his brakes, ending his and my own race then and there. I call out over the VC “Nice brake check guy”, DC, and call it a night.

The next day I wake up to an email from iRacing stating I’ve received a 2 week chat ban for excessively flashing my headlights. iRacing claims that “flashing headlights are to inform slower cars of your approach, not as a distraction.”

TL;DR, I don’t disagree with your gripes here. But better examples than what you have shown here exists.

Yeah. Just a game. People take it way too seriously and have no idea how to cope. Agreed. This being sim racing and all, people have a bit of a higher standard.

Oval side of things has more leyway and loose interpretation of fair racing standards. No lack of crybabies, can’t argue that.

But both the virtual examples you shared? In both circumstances, 8 out of 10 times you’re gonna get penalized for that in any respectable racing series or club event.

In either (virtual) discipline, the lack of any sort of live stewardship just empowers the concerned citizens types and Karen/Kens in all the wrong ways.

In both your examples you got off with a warning, which was the appropriate sanction IMO. It's like in F1 every driver gets a 5+ second penalty or something like that at some point in his career, every footballer gets a red card sometimes etc, in the same sense a simracer has to get a suspension once in a while, just part of the game, no big deal. I'd rather have it this way than too lenient regulation.

The reason I left Online racing was because of this. you bump and run someone boom 5 laps later your are wrecked. Shit i've passed someone just to be wrecked

My guy …. You’re literally driving like a douche bag and cheating lol. This isn’t at all what I thought it would be 😂

I can’t even fathom reporting someone. And I’ve had people hit me from behind at180 mph first lap after an hour of qualifying and practice. I’ve had people clearly just say fuck it and jerk full left or right first lap and wipe out everyone. And I’ve had reports on me and I race like it’s a real car I can’t afford to repair.

I legit fall into that category you described early in the vid. Yet in my league I’m one of the guys who file the least amount of protests, because at the end of the day, it’s not that deep.

Also a factor in the dissonance between IRL racing culture and Sim Racing culture imo, might be because a lot of the new guys and especially the ones you described, come from the F1 fandom circle, and think that the same rules and agreements apply to other forms of racing when that’s not the case. GT3 ≠ Formula racing, you can expect a little bit of roughhousing in GT3/Touring/Stock cars cuz, they can handle it.

I mean the guy who filed the GT3 protest was running a Ferrari F1 livery, that might give you a hint as to how he thinks Racing should be done (any type of contact is a big nono)

Someone has never watched an F1 race.
F1 incident reports are also hurt feelings reports.

People don’t like me I’m b open xfinity because I race them too hard it’s one crybaby I won’t name. Him but he constantly will complain about everyone who races be open that raced him a little to hard and didn’t let him go

So, maybe protests are a little too frivolous sometimes, but what is a solution you are proposing? Protest appeals? Genuine question because at least in my lo206 league they do one protest, either confirm or deny, no appeals. Do you want it to be more real like that or something more convoluted?

2nd clips looks like the classic case of "I'll just run it up the inside and use my opponent as backstop". I mean that was a pretty bad attempt at an overtake and you just blasted through the apex and would've understeered off the track if you didn't use the leader as a guardrail. You can clearly see the leader give you space as you understeer into him and I'd be pissed also.

why pay money out of your ass in iRacing when you could play fucking mario kart instead.

As someone who's on the spectrum himself and also played 3 seasons of tackle football and now do SCCA Formula Vee, I have to agree. I've probably watched this video three or four times because someone finally had the balls to say any of this.

My friends were on a vc the other day and found someone on the iRacing forums who called himself “Batman” for protesting people even if he wasn’t involved in the wreck. Not even joking

There is a clear difference between the 2 examples you brought up. The first one is intentionally violating existing rules, if I lost out on you doing that, I’d have made a report too (I probably wouldn’t have if it didn’t matter in the end). The second report is a joke though, protesting people for making mistakes is not cool

Formula 1 stewarding also don't help.
Anyway, I'm in my 40, and I can't be bothered to have hurt feelings. On LFM, I usually watch the replay if something happens. I have never reported someone, or wrote him a mean message. The farthest I go, I DM his on LFM, and just ask "Why?" or "Don't you use mirrors, or radar?" And the next line is always, "Let's hope we have a cleaner race next time. Be well." But these have to be really stupid things, like we're both on the straight, door to door, and the person suddenly drive into me off road. But shit happens. I have done this too. I got distracted by someone or something, wasn't looking at the monitor for 5-10 sec, and sadly crashed him. But I apologized to him later, because it wasn't intentional. I have never experienced "revenge crashing". In my mind, revenge crashing deserves protest, especially if it happens second or third time.

This wasn’t a problem when I first got on IRacing. No they are not hurt feelings reports. The problem is everyone who grabbed a PC when all the covid money was being given out.

dude my brain is roting while watching this

I went into turn 3 at my local dirt track a little too hard and my truck didn't turn good (entered on the bottom, didn't smash the brake hard enough(no power brake)) and hit one of the guys on my outside and bent his lower A arm. Didn't even get mad. Said "shit happens" and we were good. Tapped someone in CARB CUP (unranked iRacing race) and got suspended for a week. Tired of these sensitive people on here.

Kindve disagree. with no live stewards what else are you meant to do. You might have only finished 5th at Sebring but next time you might win because of it. At which point people say ("but ive always done it like that"). Anonymised reporting system is absolutely fine when people dont always know the rules of racing

On the 70s, F1 drivers had to create the Driver's Association because the race managers won't give a crap about their security. I already pitched this on some DJ-Yee video, but we, as sim racers, have to create our Driver's Association, with transparency, so we can have this middle ground for those disputes.

I have to disagree. I think the demand for "clean racing" is a strength and intergral to simracing. While the report examples you brought up in the video are not worthy of reports, a hell of a lot of dirty moves are. In real life there are actual consequences for driving like an asshat, but in the sim if you'd only punish things like driving the wrong way on track and intentional wrecking, there's no risk whatsoever for pushing the boundaries. Every corner.
Can I make this corner without ramming my opponent off track and damaging my own car? Who cares, as long as it's not intentional it doesn't cost you anything. The risk vs reward is completely different compared to real life. Therefore stricter rules are required or simracing will be like forza lobbies.

That all being said, my childhood hero was Häkkinen, not Schumacher. The latter sure achieved more success, much of it by breaking the rules when it served his purpose, while the former was always a gentleman on track and paid the price for that. I wouldn't argue against somebody stating that you need to be a bit dirty if you want to win. Some people don't want to lower themselves to that level and will achieve less as a consequence. Fair play and sportsmanship is the wrong attitude for a competitor, I acknowledge that, I just can't appreciate a victory that I win by such means.

At times I've reported people for relatively minor transgressions, not because I'm furious about them, but because I know they'll be furious about getting reported.
I'm a lot more of an ass off track than on track.

Its just society as a whole, particularly the younger woke generation. To many people are oversensitive, trouble is society actually encourages it. Everyone wants to win, and their is nothing wrong with that, but being a good sport is also part of that. Play hard but in the spirit of the game.

lol dude crying about being protested for cutting the pit lane, dont cut it then

yesterday i saw a guy brake check someone and then say he will report the guy he brake checked. amazing

The difference is that in real racing, drivers create a community. They're in it together and there's a basic amount of respect between them. On online platforms, you're racing bots controlled by strangers, and that's how people often approach opponents - as strangers tasked with controlling bots for them. This isn't a problem in leagues or more tight communities.

Had a situation in an AMS2 league - Velopark on the full layout, coming to the final corner i did not notice someone quickly approaching on my left, i banged doors with him and swerved quickly back to the right to give room in response, in response while going side-by-side through the last corner i return intentionally get pushed off the track and onto the yellow sausage curbs while hearing a fake "sorry" through the voice chat. Afterwards the dude follew it up by admitting in the public discord chat that he pushed me there on purpose because "can't understand why I was hit... on other hand my move was answer to your 'sportsmanship ' driving" .. so he threw a hissy-fit because someone accidetanlly hit him and had a total meltdown blaming everything on me for daring to make a mistake and hitting him. Absolutely embarrassing.

Having raced most of a real life single seater season back in mid 90ies, besides numerous non-license though still highly competitive endurance Gokart events, and when I grew older extensive track day experiences in vast variety of both track rigged high performance sports cars and smaller classic cars, it have never ever distracted my huge love to simracing, starting already back in 1985.
Or maybe it's due to I started simracing in the low pixel no sim rig days it has always been easy for me distracting from.

Retrospectively I think it was highly due to the use of "imagination of what's missing".
Ofc in-between lines "it's only a game", but quite obvious and which just made you automatically sharpen your imagination skills*.

Just like reading books instead of watching cartoon movies.

Ofcourse nowadays it's a bit different when you have sim developers trying to come as close to reality and then you have to let your real life experience senses to be aware. And yes several sims totally miss braking emulation and cheap LC brake pedal solutions cannot repair this fact.

However, I still love simracing, I'll never ever go down the grumpy line, otherwise it would be like stopping my life long habit, and there's still a universe of joy in it - just as I like real life track days pedal-to-the-metal.

Back on topic, speaking online simracing and attitudes towards post race punishments and bang-door hard competitors:
Uploader hits bulls eye speaking having 'met the deamons of competition in your childhood'.
Much easier to be forgiving and stick to your own anger management using the childhood experiences in later real life.

There may of course be exceptions with more difficult mental challenges.
As I certainly feel for those, nomatter how grim outcome ("it's still just a game"), I can have outcomes myself.
But when I get behind the wheel, regardless of whether it's out in reality or in sim racing, I can only enjoy it - and only laugh if something really unfortunate or downright unfair happens to me.
And when I resumed my online racing activity during Cov-19, repeated incidents of this nature only served to reinforce my relaxed attitude.

A laid-back relaxed attitude that makes you a better race driver in general.

Edit:
*The imagination skills, near interface to "an extra dimension dream world to slip into" and imagine in your head that you can feel pixel view responses in your body, IMO without a question can be autism-related as uploader states. Myself having a nephew being heavily affected by autistism and has often thought about being affected by Asperger's syndrome myself ( later as a teenager, the movie "Rain Man" also hit me hard watching in the cinema). Although I was athletic and good at all sports and loved competition, I was very introverted and never sought out communities and friends (I was saved by the fact that I was obviously well-liked and never missed friends who always came to me, not the opposite), besides later after I passed the 50 mark, I was diagnosed with ADD (the "silent" ADHD) of which vaguely is related to Aspergers syndrome, which is kind of tragicomic in relation to how much deep technical multitasking I'm involved in from the time I show up early morning to leaving late afternoon at my job, haha.

I agree, kids (physically and mentally) don’t know when to take an L for hard racing. I could have made at least 20 reports in the past but I know it’s better to just move on and try harder in the next race. I get taken out in my pretend race car from a racing incident, I’ll get a drink and go again. When someone does something extremely stupid I’ll say it 20% of the time and just move on.
I don’t have money on the line and it’s not a real multi six figure race car so I like most people should which is get over it and move on.
I enjoy r/sim racing stewards on reddit because it’s what brings out the dumbest people who like to sook about hard racing and I enjoy calling out the stupidity in a smart matter to not get banned.

I mainly run wreckfest and Forza Motorsport leagues here and there to fill time (especially during winter months) and this video was spot on, everyone has a different philosophy on what is fair game in racing. I got penalized in a league for “hard sends into other drivers doors” not even taking anyone out just hitting them after locking up the brakes in my 69 Camaro. I in a somewhat similar fashion to you have irl experience as I took rookie of the year in my local tracks stock fwd class (I think I ran into you in the cavalier groups one time) One night irl I got potentially a little to greedy and accidentally dumped another car, both of us gathered up our cars and finished the race intact. I apologized to her after the race and her dad even made a Facebook post the next day defending me saying that our incident was unintentional, making note of my apology afterwards, all this coming from the same guy that was going to be buffing fenders come Monday. It’s weird how putting a virtual tire mark on someone is a cardinal sin a majority of the time, whereas an on track incident with monetary and points paying implications can sometimes strengthen friendships.

It's one thing to be irritated by the way someone is racing you or be bitter about losing a race because of a dirty move but if you can't emotionally handle getting moved for a win (which is a concerning amount of people btw) you need to have a reality check because that's a problem that goes way deeper on a personal level, you can change that and your life will get better, it's ok to just deal with things not going your way without crying about it and trying to get someone else in trouble over it.

League discords have become pathetic places to be, very toxic and full of nonsense. It always goes the same way, league admin starts friendly, explaining they just want good clean racing. A few bad eggs come and go which result in capital letter filled posts littered with threats if people behave a certain way again. Then starts the emoji reactions competition, followed by the monologue by a self pedestal mounting suck up explaining how we only get to race because of admins and volunteers, and we should all be grateful. One person complains, then the popcorn eating, deck chair gifs begin, the mob mentality starts as the remaining members all turn on the aggressor. Member gets humiliated and then gets booted or quits, and all is fine again until another incident occurs and the whole thing repeats itself again. Races become increasingly filled with "RACE CONTROL!" screams for penalties, not only for hurt feelings, but for revenge aswell. It really is so sad and embarassing, you hit the nail on the head Austin.

So you got caught violating rules and overtaking by using the other car as a stop block and are now mad about it? And your excuse is that you either make the same mistake in real-life or you actually think that this is a legit way to overtake?
It sounds to me like you are the one needing to touch grass, if enforcement of rules leads to such a video.

I have diagnosed autism, I’ve never been great with social interaction, and I’ll even admit to having anger management issues; in other words, I am essentially the exact demographic of the people that do this sort of thing. And yet, these forum dwellers still seem really pathetic to me. Why? ‘Cause I live in the real world. I have at least a basic understanding of right and wrong.

If I come across someone doing something clearly against the spirit and/or rules of the competition, I’ll absolutely call them out on it; otherwise, if the way someone races you hurts your ego, that’s your problem, not theirs.

I think this video is a hurt feelings report

Broken window theory. If you let borderline moves go unpunished for too long, the service will be riddled with people pulling stupid, winning at all costs stunts in C class daily races. For reference try watching 20 minutes of any "pro" racing and see how the moves are quite usually pretty bad. But I 100% agree that some iRacers are annoying moaning biatches

I've got a few stories I'll share related to this:

1. I was running a street stock short track race on an alt account using my mouse since I didn't have access to a wheel. I accidentally click a button on the mouse that automatically acts like the steering wheel has been unplugged so the car goes straight into a corner and slightly taps another person up the track a lane. Guilty for "intentional wrecking" out of that and I couldn't argue it because it was just a light doortap that shoved a guy up a lane so I didn't feel the need to save a replay.

2. Got randomly protested in a pickup cup race for going in reverse (not backwards) on the apron after getting into a pileup and stayed out of everyone's way. Just got a warning for this.


3. One of my friends got suspended for a week without any prior warnings to his account for using the apron at Daytona RC in a Production Car Challenge race. Dude wasn't even being told that what he did was wrong mid-race nor was he battling anyone for positions.

i remember one time i got a warning in forza of all places because i banged doors with a guy on corner exit (he ran wide and i sneaked inside), then the guy got pissed, tried to push me off but ended up crashed into a tree

kneebon has some kind of addiction to protest people in his videos. Someone could potentially rebound off the wall, spin, collide with him in a crash, and then he will pm him good luck on your vacation. Like almost every video.

There is a difference between accidentally hitting someone and intentionally wrecking someone.