RPM Addicts: ABR: No T1000 Here

Last Saturday I participated in an event called "Auto Barrel Racing", or ABR for short. They have some funny commercials online which features some of my other friends who were hired to shoot the original advertisement. For those of you that haven't seen what these events entail, its basically a timed race that has competitors to circles around barrels. Pretty straightforward. It looked fun, and there was also a $5,000 prize to the winner. Since it was being held in conjunction with Hot Import Nights Anaheim, it was close enough to me that I decided to enter.

The field was pretty mixed, mostly of drivers who were relatively new to any form of sanctioned motor sport, and most of their cars were at some low level of build. There were a few guys with "show" cars but nobody brought out a rally car, and Ken Block didn't show up so competition seemed not too bad. Though one by one, some of my friends started to show up. It was no surprise that none of us knew each other were attending, since I think all of us wanted to keep the event as much on the down-low as possibly so as to remove any unnecessary competition to keep each of us from our $5,000 goal. Yes, we are all Shady.

Practices throughout the day went rather well. I decided not to use my R-compound tires, mostly because I knew that Pfeiffer was going to hand me my ass at some point anyways. I left my drift setup on, because my e-brake doesn't work too well and I needed some way to get the car to change angle fast around the cones. Everything seemed to be going well, as I never hit a barrel or did anything funny in practice. It was pretty straightforward.

Then, competition started at around 7 under the lights. During the driver's meeting, we were told that qualifying would be run in a best-times-make-it scenario. Even though we'd be lined up next to a competitor, we wouldn't be racing them just yet, rather we'd be racing the clock. We were allowed 2 runs each, but your 2nd run was going to be what got you in if you chose to run it. My qualifying run went smooth, and as I passed the traps (ahead of the m3 next to me) I noticed a time somewhere around 26 seconds.

Then they started announcing the top 16 times. As most of us had guessed, local driver Quoc Ly had qualified first with a time somewhere in the low 25's I believe, and Alex P was right next to him. Then they started to announce a few more names, and shockingly enough several of us apparently didn't make the cut. It seemed strange at first because there had to be at least 4-5 guys who we had been regularly beating all day that made the cut. After they announced the last of the 16, I asked the guy his time. He said he ran a 28.8. Needless to say, I approached the people in charge of timing with some questions.

Two of my other friends accompanied me to find out what the deal was, since all 3 of us had times faster than that of #16 qualifier. They were recording our times on these cards, and after review of my two friend's time cards, they did indeed find that both of them had times under the range of 28.8. The girl keeping time (organizer's daughter) said that they were disqualified for some reason or another. Then she got to me, and found that I had no time written on my card whatsoever. She also said I must have hit a barrel or did something to get DQ'ed. She then told us that she was busy and that if we had any more questions to come back after the event was done.

I came back, after the event finished. I asked the guy flagging whether my time would even begin to datalog had I jumped the timing lights, and he confirmed that they would not. Since I passed through the traps and saw my time, I didn't jump the lights. I also did not hit a barrel. I then found out that the other girl in charge of timing (event staff's wife) had done exactly what she wasn't supposed to do in qualifying: she created 2 piles of cards, 1 with the winners of who they were lined up against, and 1 with the losers. This still somehow didn't apply to me, since I beat the guy I was lined up against.

After much deliberation and frustrating back and fourth to illustrate to them how big they dropped the ball, they admitted that they made a huge mistake. As a matter of fact, as our argument continued a crowd formed, and several other drivers also said that their times were faster than the #16 qualifier at 28.8. All in all, my guess is that at least 5-6 of the 16 finalists shouldn't have made it that far. In my view, this is a pretty huge mistake. When $5,000 dollars is on the line, you don't make mistakes like that. At least a professional staff wouldn't have made such a mistake.

They used the "we've only done 5 events so we're still new" excuse, and the main organizer told me "it was a free event, what do you want me to do?". Knowing that he's a stunt guy, I'm going to guess he's never been a motor sport guy, otherwise he'd understand that attending an event is much more than just paying the entry fee. Sure, entry was free, but my tires certainly weren't, neither were the fluids I had to change nor was the lunch that I bought. Never mind the favors I asked a few people for to allow me to drive in this event. An event is never free.

Anyways I told them that I'd like them to remove my signature from the waiver I signed allowing them to use my images, interview, and any other photos taken to promote their event. I simply didn't want to be part of anything or promote anything this unprofessional (this sucks for them though because my interview was great! The guy asked me what "hachiroku" meant and I told him I didn't speak Chinese). I can only hope that they take this as a lesson learned, and not just as a "That Steve guy was an asshole".