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not bending
the rules for anyone
Being the
boss, deciding the rules, sticking to them, and being the referee is
often not a popular position. Someone
has to do it, or the scene isn't equitable.
First
it means not fashioning the rules to suit yourself. That would be pitiful,
and I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it. It
means being impartial, comitting to dividing lines in a grey areas,
being an even handed social referee as well. Friends and colleagues
got good and cross with me on a regular basis for refusing to bend the
rules or change race dates for them. Or be emotional when they were
fired up about another rider's comments. A good
friend said sullenly that I had just "shut him down"
when I said I wouldn't change a race date so he could race somewhere
else.
But
to lead, one has to be single-mindedly focused on the big long term
picture. I consulted with colleagues on most decisions, especially if
one was a hard call.
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CLASSIC
EXAMPLE #1 Including
Linkage
A million times I was asked to change the cutoff line, or add
a class. Riders used to come up looking dismayed and in anguish
and ask me to change the Evo Age Class rules,
which (for an example) allow any stock Yamaha from 1975 up to
the linkage model.
Q:
WHY can't we allow the 82 when the 81 is exactly the same?
(the question itself is the problem: it assumes the incorrect
context)
The real question is :
Q: HOW is it fair that a 75 race against an 81?
A: IT ISN'T FAIR, But is is the best compromise we
have.
That's why we aren't messing with a good thing.
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CLASSIC
EXAMPLE #2 Modern
Bikes
Q:
A few of the guys have 80s and 90s bikes -
if you run a spare class for them it really shouldn’t be
a big deal, right?
(again it is the Question itself that is the problem)
The
sticky word is FEW. If there are a few 80s/90s bikes,
no problem – but if you start getting even 12 to 15 guys
on what essentially are modern bikes before you know it you
have Vintage guys sitting around waiting for their motos, nothing
interesting to see – and beginning to not want to be there
anymore. I know that I glaze over when I see even mid-80s bikes.
I don’t see them. Nothing to do with the rider. So the
day isn’t simply opportunity for the rider. It is also
the spectators.
That's
why we aren't messing with a good thing.
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CLASSIC
EXAMPLE #3 the
Chat Group
Oh my GOD~! Such & such said something on the chat
group that was infuriating / out of line / in bad taste / a
veiled threat.
CJ you gotta DO something~! Kick him off the group and out of
the club~!
they cried.
First
of all FREE SPEECH is a bitch, because
anyone here is afforded the right to say anything he feels like.
And even if it was a personal attack, I didn't see dramatic
heavy-handed justice as the first option. I would always have
a brief quiet come-to-Jesus talk with the individual
and it was fixed.
Hilariously,
the unnecessary drama that often followed was from a friend
rather than the offending party, because there hadn't been the
expected public hanging.
"All
of us are stronger than any one of us..." as Ray
Kroc said. And our Vintage Scene is always going to be better
undivided. And
that's why....
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CHEATING
The most marvelously audacious incident happened one year at Goldendale
in the Gran Prix. The course was 7 miles to a lap, and Grayson Hart
(right) was setting the fast times, and is the yardstick to which
almost everyone falls short. Another rider
was setting some very good times - not quite as fast as Grayson. Then
to everyone's amazement the chasing rider poured on the coals like
madman and sliced THREE MINUTES off his lap time- far faster than
old #72 there~!
He
had done the impossible. But in an even more amazing turn of events,
rather than keep it up he went back to his regular lap times. A curious
and complicated strategy for winning the race.
It
was almost as if he'd cut the course on a lap. And the pro photographer
who saw him slipping off the course and down an access road even captured
the moment for posterity. Good Stuff.
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SANDBAGGERS
"you've
got my wife against me" sobbed
the rider on the other end of the phone. I said "CMon Man, you
should be happy -you're now what we all aspire to be - you're an expert
" In the background his wife was saying be proud, and
other similar encouraging things. All because I moved him up. Most
riders, informed that they would be moving up , would smile self consciously,
and say yeah yeah I know. But a few try the old taken-aback-and-deeply-dismayed
routine. One rider said flatly hat he'd have to quit racing. He didn't.
Some
riders forgot that they were experts, and entered Intermediate
again. Some would take a year off and return as amateurs, claiming breezily
that they'd taken a great deal of time off. This was of course its own
science experiment to see how fast they could remember
to ride at the expert level. About half a lap or so was the conclusion.
The
tearful rider who on the phone wasn't too terribly scarred, because
he went on to win an expert championship, and THEN forgot and has been
racing Amateur at the Farm for the past three years, running away by
a hundred miles, and getting away with it.
Grayson Hart, Northwest Vintage
Star
the
Real fastest Man around the Goldendale Course
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