A Sainted Manifest

[Sainted]

My racing activity is on / off most of the time, with active daily sessions intertwined with months of not starting the game. However, what is truly consistent is the amount of in-game chatter my racing creates - sometimes it seems I am the most-discussed racer on AA's GTi Demo servers.

So I thought it would make sense to highlight and explain some of the philosophies I follow when I go out on a virtual race track. Opinions are welcome, but I am quite realistic regarding the number of people to ever see this post, yet alone, agree with any of the thesis here.

01. I take my simracing seriously. I only do this because my priorities do not allow for any real-world motorsport competition. Therefore, I do get upset when my races - regardless of the result - get ruined by some casual clowns saying "relax, it's a game". If I was interested in a game, I would happily play Need For Speed.

02. I know for a fact that even 4-lap sprints should be raced with a cool head, with any manoeuvre being a calculated and throught-through affair. Therefore, anybody attempting to take the chicane after T1 on Lap 1 side-by-side is a stupid fool in my eyes. There are zero gains to be made, the following straight can easily allow you to gain quite a few positions through smart application of slipstreaming and calculated out-braking at it's end.

03. I take matters in my own hands, and make sure clowns unlucky enough to be near me are getting what they deserve:
      - We are allowed one blocking manoeuvre per straight, and everybody who start waving in front of me, will be spun off
      - If you go on the grass to overtake me, don't honk you horn - I will not let you back onto the racing surface
      - If you attempt to overtake me on the outside, and on corner exit you have less than 20% overlap with my car, I will squeeze you off
      - If you are a 1:35 (GTi / Blackwood GP) driver, and are so desperate to overtake me, that you are divebombing me into every corner, I will make sure one of your divebombs will end in the wall
- If I move to block your overtake, and you move even further to the inside and pull up alongside, I won't move back to the racing line. I do this do make you extremely uncomfortable, and force into either an error of outbraking yourself, or an overly cautious early braking.

04. The most bizarre comment I have even seen in chat was that I have overtaken someone in a "forbidden place", but which the guy meant Turn 4 at Blackwood (the Right part of the Right-Left sequence). The overtake was clean, done on the inside, having resulted in that guy being very slow out of Turn 3.
      - There are no "forbidden places" to overtake in - as long as the overtake is clean, one may pass everybody everywhere, inside or outside
      - If you are only capable of overtaking at the end of the long backstraight, I highly recommend uninstalling LFS and never playing a racing game again - it's not for you

05. I do practise some tricks to unsettle the opponents physically or psychologically. These may include:
      - Bump-drafting down the straights where there are no positions to gain in front of our improvised tandem. This usually catches less experienced people out, as they often fail to realize they arrive at their braking points around 10kph faster than they normally do. They subsequently outbrake themselves, giving me a free position.
      - When pulling alongside someone for an overtake, I sometimes only leave a "carwidth + 10cm" space to the guy next to me. First, I still need to ark the upcoming corner properly, secondly, because who are you anyway for me to provide you with luxury of 3-4 meters around your car?
      - When I am being overtaken on the straight after having made my one allowed lane change, I only move back when I know the guy is genuinely faster, and I shall not lose a lot of time through being overtaken. However, when there is nothing to gain in front, I never move back, thus forcing the overtaking driver into manoeuvring within very tight confines of space. Why? Because again, I am not Santa Clause, I don't send presents, so you should earn the position by racing me hard and clean.

06. I come to the servers to get some intense and hard racing. I happily come home 7th after being beaten by faster guys, or by being overtaken clean by people who know what they are doing. Guys like Garally, Velocity, Frenando Alfrondo (spelling?), Nookie and Dynamoopel are some of the better racers out there, and with most of them we have done whole laps bumper-to-bumper and side-by-side without colliding. In stark contrast, people able to crash into each other in the middle of the back straight, are total waste of my time, and I inform them of the fact without being overly polite.
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This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should be a solid foundation for those [non-existant] members of the community who wonder what this Sainted fella is thinking of himself.

A lot.

[AA™| nooK!e]

Hello, Sainted,
I have a question... what are you trying to achieve with this thread?

I don't really have a problem with you, but I find your behaviour very selfish, I've already told you that several times.

Today was the day. Sainted doesn't want to leave any room for the opponent and slips into the opponent with cold tyres.
Why can't you say "sorry"? You leave the server and probably cry in a corner because you made the mistake yourself.

We're all here to have fun and that should be in the foreground.

It is striking that you are involved in every crash.

nooK!e

[CHV]

 "- We are allowed one blocking manoeuvre per straight, and everybody who start waving in front of me, will be spun off." sainted


You try to block me again in a straight line, or leave me again without curve space, I assure you that I will not brake and I will leave it against the wall.


The attitude he had with us yesterday was absurd, we were ALL against what you said, and you were still angry and doing the maneuvers with bad intentions.

And as I told you on the server, if you have bad intentions, I can have a lot more bad intentions than you.

And if we all have a problem with you, I ask myself one thing ... Are not you the problem? It is very rare that many yesterday we challenged your attitude.

Name CHV 
Username Jhon_A

[Sainted]

Nookie, my objective was to provoke people into crying, which we are already seeing.

Indeed, I race in a very selfish way, because I come on the servers to race for the best result possible. I never break rules, but I thought some explaining was in order to address those crybabies who race as if they were on a cruise server.

CHV, I don't respect you, plain and simple. What I see from your racing, is that you have poor understanding of car positioning in a battle, and you consider it okay to change direction under braking. So, because I don't respect you, I am racing with as aggressively as possible without braking the rules.

If you still think I break the rules, save your replays and create reports. If you don't, I'd recommend keeping your mouth shut and race on.

[CHV]

The one who came to mourn with a will is you, the one who has problems with ALL is you.

I run every day and there is no problem with anyone, I can make mistakes and they are ready, they remain on the track, with a "forgiveness" they are solved.

If you have a frustration for not being able to run in real life, solve it in a psychologist, not on the track where we are going to have fun and compete healthily.

From now on I will not respect you either, I'm interested in people with good intentions, so on the track I'll show you, I'll have to be more aggressive with you.

CHV

[AA™| Kadir]

you only race on one map,I think this is that means she didn't do it seriously.if you're really a serious racer, you don't bother people in fun races.Go and show yourself in league races.

[AA™| nooK!e]

Sainted, that disrespectful with others simply repeats me. if you provoke others and try to inflict this phsysical damage, we have to think about excluding you from running.

[AA™| rane_nbg]

Hi Sainted, I'm very sorry for you not being able to race in the real world. Many of us feel the same, but we do not express our frustrations in a sim.

We all just want some good and clean old school racing with respectful and mature people. You obviously have some personal problems. Mainly "you think too much of yourself" in kind of a passive aggressive deal. That is ok, we do not care, people are different. The way I see it, the purpose of this thread was to promote yourself as an ultimate racer + wanting everyone else to confirm and start kissing your ass. Well, that ain't gonna happen here. I do appreciate stating your objectives/opinions regarding racing personality, nothing wrong about that.

You are seeking your dope at a wrong place dude, it's a demo server. As Kadir already suggested, if you are so serious with sim racing, why don't you join us in league racing? Many of us are regulars at FM GTi Thursdays and FM FOX Fridays, and oh boy are those 1h+ races intense. There are many other leagues like STARL or LRL. Try it out and you'll see your place among crazy fast and very skillful racers. Even there, one does see some reckless mistakes, but quite rarely. If that doesn't do it for you, then I do not know what will in lfs.

[AA™| AOR Nova]

Demo servers contain a mixture of great, skilled racers as well as newcomers or racers with less experience, usually the latter of higher percentage.

By behaving selfishly on track and not respecting other drivers, you come across as disrespectful and arrogant, even if we know you race hard.

Demo server racing is different from league racing - the races are more fun and as always with less experienced racers, always more trouble created usually. Coming into a demo server expecting everyone to behave is ridiculous, let alone something that should be let get into your head.

You have great skill and talent but it means nothing if you are just out to dominate others and race "dirtily". There is nothing to be gained, and most likely the other racer would just be angered by you, and shunt you off, therefore creating the multitude of reports you were involved in. See the full circle?

Being respectful and racing clean is the key to demo racing and if you are unable to do so, no one would want you in the server. I personally also had your style of approach to incidents and racing, until I realised there was no point in doing so in a demo server. I now use those tactics in league racing, where such maneuvers would be more in place and the majority of experienced racers would acknowledge that your hard, aggressive racing is actually wonderful.

But to some 14 year old rookie racing in his first 20 hours in Blackwood? You gotta be out of your mind.

Let me get this straight - I don't dislike you, nor do I think you race terribly. But, if you continue to drive as if your grandfather owns Demo servers, I will not hesitate to give you a lengthy ban on the server. This also applies to other places that you race badly in, where I have admin power, of whom I will not disclose. Just bare in mind I don't just read only AA forums.

Any way. If you feel the need for speed and hard racing, join any league, really. You were in LRL round 1, but you ragequit after you cracked under pressure and rolled. We would love to have you back charging past the field!

[Sainted]

All of you have completely missed the point of my post. Albeit it being [intentionally] written in a manner of "I own the place, I own you, now get on your knees" style to provoke this mini-outcry from the active forum members, at no point did I state any the following:

01. I have personal problems. To the best of my knowledge, I am comfortable with myself and the world around me. My remark about racing in LFS because I am unable to race in real life is just that - this is how I have fun from competing. This is NOT a way for compensating for anything in a psychological sense. It might have been 20 years ago in my mid-teens, but I am... Well, a bit more mature now.

02. I drive disrespectfully and push people off. All I said was that I race hard, and anyone should expect harder racing from me than from most people on the server. Nothing more, nothing less. I felt the need to put this into letters, as some less experienced folk, or those with different approach to competition often find themselves caught out by some of my overtaking or defending. As I state in my initial post, I have upmost respect for rules, and to the best of my knowledge I take every measure to remain within the rules. This being said, I push the envelope on occation, and I openly admit that I am not particularly good at quietly chugging along behind a slower driver simply because he / she is less experienced.

03. Not sure why this needs further explaining: I see / understand obvious difference between people making contact through their inexperience or their attitude. I always give inexperienced guys space, and I don't have a problem with them making small errors. The other end of the spectrum are the bunch further down, who rank their wrestling skills at equal importance to their steering and pedaling.

04. I am out to dominate. Again, not sure where everyone has got that from. I have had strings of 20+ races running and finishing 7th because I was unable to match the pace of the guys in front, and those races were by far more enjoyable than checking out from slower guys by 1.5s per lap. The most enjoyable evening of racing I have had in a long time was around 2 weeks ago, when after having had my ass handed to me by Velocity a couple of times, I went on to win 5 races in a row from him, with Velocity being within 1s from me for all those 20 laps. I don't even think the difference in our fastest laptimes exceeded 0.2s at any one point. Not a single contact, but some hard racing from start to finish.
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Now on a separate note - and I am happy to get a 365-day for this immediately - I want people to know this: I will never treat everybody with the same level of respect. Those racers, who race hard, their skill is obvious, they are prepared for intense competition, and understand everybody makes mistakes - they have infinite respect from me, and I go out of my way not to make any contact with them. Others, however, like TheCaos, CHV & Mladenovic either find it fine to push people around, or are hilariously desperate in their effort not to be overtaken - I see them as the lowest end of a racer's food chain, and despite never crashing them on purpose, will always make sure they find themselves in the least comfortable spot any time I am near them.

Why is that? I have an issue with people thinking they are immune from any sort of responsibility. Any arguments about this being a Demo Server are only valid to a point where cars start flying off the track just because somebody has not won a race in 3 years, and is desperate to protect his position against people 1s faster than them.

So, summing up. Something that nobody has argued so far is that I race within the rules as set by the admins, which means that it's only the level of aggression I bring to the track and lack of tolerance to obvious bullies that upsets folks. I will neither change that, nor do I see a reason to.

There will be a major break from racing for a while now, as I have major work commitments that include a lot of international travel, so those who want to keep pushing people around can relax. Those, who appreciate my racing, it may well be back at some point in the future, however I am not sure how many new tracks LFS will release until then.