FOR ACTAUL OR FORMER RACERS ONLY! Did you our would you cheap in race?

Back in the Pro-Solo Days, ... I used an OEM race cam, but it was OEM in Europe only... that's about as close to cheating I've come.

I get what you are asking / saying though. I think others cheat because they just cannot keep up with those that can. ( Win that is )

Steve

 

in Formula Renault I never had the opportunity to cheat, mostly if i did it was with over revving, maybe rode the curbs a bit more than should have?

 

I never did, which is probably why I was a midpack driver. I heard of guys dumping blocks of dry ice into airboxes in spec miata and Spec RX7 and all kinds of rumors in Spec Racer Ford, but I never did. Period.

I heard all of the axioms of "if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'" etc, but I left that to guys who were racing for more than a piece of wood.

Did win the 13hr at VIR with some guys in a Golf and we didn't cheat and still kicked everyone's arse.

MB

 

I never cheated, but I was accused of it many times. There is something that makes people unable to lose... they assume you must have cheated.

 

In the IJSBA stock jet ski class I was running a ported cylinder. Even after several tear downs after races the tech inspectors never could tell that the cylinders were ported. How did I get away with it??? I knew the inspectors were looking for paint over spray in the ports. So after I ported the cylinder I shot OEM color paint into the ports

 

No cheating here.
Wouldnt have made much of a difference.
It was the new tires each and every race that separated the top from me . I couldnt justify it for a plastic trophy.

I'm looking at a spec Sprint car series here in Texas. Everyone swears there is no cheating in it. Sealed Chevy V-8s. Supposedly only a couple of sets of tires a year and get this; They race for prize money ! Said to be enough for even mid pack cars to break even. What a concept.
Guess I'll have to teach them the road racing way in that your not having fun unless you bleed money.

 

Cheating is something i won't do. Even if I won't get caught by tech, I know would know what I did and live with tainted memories. Like with the mentioned building of cams to the same spec, it comes down to being a loose or strict constructionist. Like at our recent Rotax Grand Nationals (125cc two stroke centrifugal cluth karts) the man who had a great drive to win the Masters class had his National Title stripped from him in tech for not having the washer on the spark plug. Innocent mistake? Or fudge'able advantage?

 

I never cheated and never would, have many flaws but ethical behaviour is very important to me. How can those who do face themselves in the mirror?
I knew some were doing it in the French karting championship when I did that 84 to 86 and that the Italians did it quite a bit however in 1988 in the British Esso Formula Ford series I once broke my engine during a test day at Donington and my team, Amity racing based at Silvertone and not having my spare there in the truck temporarily fitted the spare of my teammate and I felt like I suddenly had a turbo on! What a difference!

That team mate was Gil de Ferran.

I am not implying that it was illegal, I really like Gil who is a super Guy (and he was a bit faster than me most of the time) but simply that fresh from his Brazilian Formula Ford title he got the star treatment and I got customer x engines: racing is political as the FIA keeps demonstrating.

I did beat Gil's times that afternoon though

Does this mean I should have won the Indy 500 in 2003 instead of him....huh that is a stretch!

Here is a photo of me in my car that year: a Van Diemen RF88 at Cadwell Park, England's mini Nurburgring.

best regards,

Marc
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Absolutely.

Even if nobody else ever finds out, *you'll* know.


The key to this issue is the question: *WHY* do we race?

Do we race because we enjoy the challenge of pitting ourselves against the laws of dynamics?
Or do we get an ego-boo from "beating" some other back marker?

Is winning by any means of any value?

To answer that, you have to define your values.
There's the value to the car manufacturer, the value to the sponsors, the value to the fans of a close battle on track.
And there's the value you find in yourself, in your pride in a good honest performance, regardless of the score at the end.

When you get to professional racing, there's lots of financial pressure to win at any cost ---
--- even at the cost of your self esteem.

Heck, you could break into some place and heist some trophies. Would that feel the same as winning them?
Would you proudly display "stolen" trophies on the mantle?



When I was rallying (non-pro), the only person I was competing against was myself.
(Of course, rallye is a different kind of racing -- you're not fender to fender, and you usually only ever see the other competitors at the checkpoints.)

I've won rallyes that felt like a loss -- I made tons of mistakes. (It's just that the other drivers made even more mistakes.)
I've lost rallyes that felt like a win -- I did better than ever before. (But nobody could beat a @#$% Stratos. )

And I've had the mix -- a rallye where I nailed almost every stage ... and then blew it with one goof. That's racing.
And a "loss" like that didn't bother me all that much. (That was a "90% win". (And 10% fubar))
The score isn't the only way to measure yourself.

(I don't actually know where any of my old rallye trophies are -- they're in storage somewhere, I guess. I wasn't racing to collect abstract art.)

 

I disagree.

I spent a lot of time drag racing, and while some people laugh it off as not real racing, if you want to be at the top of the heap, you must learn very precisely how to squeeze the maximum power out of your car.

In one instance, a competitor acted highly inappropriately (stopping his car on track to block everyone... doing a huge burnout down the pit entrance.. shouting as he got out of his car) because he was convinced I was cheating because of the exact situation you described.

The irony was the only mods allowed in that class were exhaust and tires. He had a full exhaust with headers, I had just a removed muffler. I got on the power sooner than he did out of a turn, and I passed him on the back straight, because I knew how to drive better than he did. He told people he 'knew' I had internal engine mods. I didn't. I made it through to the finals, he did not. I chose not to run because I wanted to leave early and make the drive home - he petitioned the officials to let him advance to the finals because I forfeited. I did - I forfeited the final, but not the race where I beat him.

To this day he tells people cheated. The irony is that I had sponsored a dyno day a couple of months later where my car dynoed about 15hp less than his car did, plus I was a bigger guy so I had a weight disadvantage.

In short, people see cheating often, even when it doesn't exist. He couldn't accept that fact that someone could just be a better driver than him, so when I passed him, his only options were that I was better, or I was cheating. He clings to the latter, when it just wasn't the case.

 

I have never blatantly cheated however I have been very creative with the interpretation with the rules. I see these as two very different things as 'the spirit' of the rules is far too vague so I push the letter of the rules as much as I can. Some people may call that cheating however the attitude I take is that if it is not in the rule book then it is fair game. The fellow who chimed in about the European camshaft in his engine is totally legal unless the rules stipulated otherwise.

Recently I turned down racing in one championship because I unearthed a huge loophole and felt that the organizers would not be fair when they found out that they had been caught out. It turned out to be a very wise decision as one other competitor spent a ton of money to race while trying to exploit a similar loophole. The championship organizers acted incredibly unfair and in one instance disqualified the car after the race and changed the rules at the same time! Essentially the car started the race legal and after the race the organizers said that the rules are now changed so the car is now illegal. Luckily I saved a ton of hassle as the whole cheating thing goes both ways with the teams and rule makers.

 

Bump passing is against the rules at our gokart track yet I have used that technique. As have pretty much all other drivers who were fast.

PS: It's not cheating if you don't get caught...Merely skilled driving

 

Never cheated or did anything out of regulation. We were very controlled in karting and had stock engines when I was racing F3 Reynard and touring cars. There is always grey areas but no cheating.

If you need to cheat to win because everybody else is doing so may be you should move to a different series. It's not worth it IMO.

 

Maybe I'm naive, and I was checked for displacement in my SECOND race (Good Lord, it was a Fiat 850, for Christmas' sake!), but I've always felt that I'd rather be beat than cheat. I'm not pro racing, so I am really just racing for a cheap trophy and bragging rights. I went into a spec class (tightly restricted) because I was tired of being outspent in SCCA Production and Sedans, but I do buy the best I can afford and fresh tires all the time. If you want to win, you have to spend the money.

I do get a perverse pleasure from needling the people I know are not straight after I beat 'em!

 

No. But, I'm not sure I want my crew chief answering this question...

And, in the fine spirit of our former President, "It depends on what the definition of cheating is." Are clever interpretations of the rules cheating? Or just being smarter than the other guys?

CW

 

Yes, I cheated to win, I learned how to remove the "governor" from my Briggs and Stratten Go cart at the local "U-drive-um" cart track ! Yea baby, I smoked em all !!!


This just in folks, EVERY PRO CLASS CHEATS TO WIN, PERIOD ! It doesn't matter what kind of racing, if theres money to be won, theres cheating. This isn't to say that the driver knows, but the team cheats, thats a fact.

I suppose there could be teams who don't cheat at all, they end up out of the sport in due time, or they finish at the back of the pack.