We’re inside the oval at Daytona International Speedway, about to leave in our 702-horsepower Dodge Ram 1500 TRX—which would have normally been revered elsewhere but was roundly ignored inside the walls of the world’s largest truck show—when a lady in a golf cart motions for us to roll down the window.
“You’ll have to go up to that building and …
I'm gonna get the coal rolling here and say not my cup of tea, nor my table, nor my house.
Well, this thread should be interesting.
I'm going to start out by saying that auto/motorsports enthusiasts tend to gather in tribes, and they aren't all the same. To go further, one particular type of enthusiast is under no obligation at all to support another type. I often see people posting this idea that "it's a slippery slope, if we let them regulate or control X then the terrorists win and we all lose." Nonsense.
When a particular motorsports culture exists simply for the purpose of pissing people off to make some kind of statement, it actually harms all the other motorsports cultures. This one is an offshoot of a larger cultural phenomenon that I won't go into here. The vast majority of non-enthusiasts WILL demand consequences that will spill over onto all sorts of other innocent enthusiasts. So the yokels blasting clouds of diesel smoke and trashing public property at 4am are, in a very direct way, harming my ability to go out and work on my lap times.
TL;DR don't be a dick. Especially in groups of 50,000 other dicks. I feel bad for people that live in Daytona, for years it's been the de facto spot for large groups of people to gather and act like idiots.
If someone else organized it, a truck event could be entirely out of control. As it is, he gives the truckers an enclosed environment to show off. “Otherwise, it could be worse.”
yeah not the best way to show that you are a benefit to the community. Look how much worse it could be. Add in the tickets issued and this is a doomed event in the long run.
The lead photo of the truck doing burnouts - that's just a normal burnout contest with the addition of visible particulates in the exhaust. Can't get upset about that. If you celebrate a Miata with a Hellcat motor shredding tires inside a concrete box, you should celebrate a diesel truck doing the same.
But having the event spill into the streets and the attendees pissing off the locals, that's a problem. The fact that it's trucks isn't really a factor, it could be Harleys or sportbikes or Civics or old-school hot rods - all of whom have had this problem at one time or another. It's the fact that the people attending the event are basically peeing in the pool, that's going to get the event canceled. Just like spring break in Panama City, really. From what I understand, it basically got shut down because nobody could behave themselves.*
* I think it was Panama City, I could have the wrong town. One of the big beach destinations locked down Spring Break about 3 years ago IIRC.
Everything else aside, these are pretty nice
In reply to RevRico :
I'm curious how that UTVSUVSVU gets going under its own power.
There are motorsports events where bad behavior in the race track is well known, right? Like the infield of Watins Glenn.
Had those groups of people spilled over the same event into the general public, I would bet that they would have gotten shut down, too.
It's kind of amusing that they claim to bring in all kinds of tourist money- when you make a mess that also costs money to clean up, everything you bring as tourists is very much negated cost wise.
I just can't get over this statement:
‘“My office parking lot was trashed,” City Commissioner Aaron Delgado, an attorney, told the newspaper. “There were tampons, condoms, beer bottles. It was gross. We filled up a couple garbage cans of trash.”
This is no longer just a "dicks being dicks" problem, that's an actual public safety hazard. Like, good luck if you wanna do it next year and they show up with time stamped photos of used condoms they had to pick out with PPE on.
In reply to alfadriver :
Exactly; Total Cost of Ownership.
"Enthusiasts" are not causing the problems. Azzholes and douche bags are.
In reply to wearymicrobe :
Yeah, as someone who lives in this area, that quote reads more like a threat. "Go ahead, shut us down, we'll just keep coming back" - it's exactly what they did after the county-run convention center told them they couldn't have the event there anymore a few years ago.
Ah! The wonderful stupidity of youth.
Now get off my lawn.
Why I remember how respectful of my elders when I was a kid. I helped little old ladies cross the street and everything. Said Sir and Ma'am. Wore screw cut I got cut every Saturday.
Or did I?
There's a difference between a few rebellious individuals and those individuals descending on a town en masse. That's the problem, the gathering.
There are only two things I can't stand in this world: People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Coal Rollers.
Keith Tanner said:The lead photo of the truck doing burnouts - that's just a normal burnout contest with the addition of visible particulates in the exhaust. Can't get upset about that. If you celebrate a Miata with a Hellcat motor shredding tires inside a concrete box, you should celebrate a diesel truck doing the same.
I don't support that either. Burnout contests are dumb, period.
But touring Daytona Beach after the Saturday show, it wasn’t just squatters that were doing burnouts, sounding air horns, blasting loud music and open exhausts, and blinding other motorists with hundred-LED bolt-on lights. How Muhlbauer is expected to control this is unclear, but it could cost him the 2022 Daytona Truck Meet, especially if the Speedway buckles to the pressure and refuses to rent him the track again.
“We bring a ton of tourism dollars to the city,” Muhlbauer says. If someone else organized it, a truck event could be entirely out of control. As it is, he gives the truckers an enclosed environment to show off. “Otherwise, it could be worse.”
What he said there sounds a lot like what I hear about all the kids going to Ocean City, MD at the event located where H2oi used to be held nearby.
Guess Daytona is basically the Ocean City of the south....
ProDarwin said:Keith Tanner said:The lead photo of the truck doing burnouts - that's just a normal burnout contest with the addition of visible particulates in the exhaust. Can't get upset about that. If you celebrate a Miata with a Hellcat motor shredding tires inside a concrete box, you should celebrate a diesel truck doing the same.
I don't support that either. Burnout contests are dumb, period.
I've never understood them either.
z31maniac said:ProDarwin said:Keith Tanner said:The lead photo of the truck doing burnouts - that's just a normal burnout contest with the addition of visible particulates in the exhaust. Can't get upset about that. If you celebrate a Miata with a Hellcat motor shredding tires inside a concrete box, you should celebrate a diesel truck doing the same.
I don't support that either. Burnout contests are dumb, period.
I've never understood them either.
Note that I did say "if" :) Not my cup of tea, but I will acknowledge that a lot of enthusiasts like them, and they do take place under controlled conditions to minimize the effects on the locals.
Stupid will always be stupid. Trying to fix stupid is one of the most difficult things you can try to do.
frenchyd said:Ah! The wonderful stupidity of youth.
Now get off my lawn.
Why I remember how respectful of my elders when I was a kid. I helped little old ladies cross the street and everything. Said Sir and Ma'am. Wore screw cut I got cut every Saturday.
Or did I?
I'll bet whatever you were doing as a kid wasn't as nearly as much of a middle finger to society as what's going on today...
As an example, a week or so ago some idiots blocked off an intersection in my neighborhood (one of the busiest intersections in Minneapolis), while a guy did smokey burnouts and donuts, while simultaneously shooting off a couple dozen rounds in the air with his pistol. That's a far cry from hooning around on a deserted road out in the country somewhere.
Myrtle Beach ran into the same problem with the bike weeks. The residents didn't like it, the businesses did. Officially they shut it down but the bars still do events, as do the restaurants and hotels. You can close down the event, but stopping the people from showing up is a little more difficult. It's even more difficult when the neighboring towns like North Myrtle and Murrells Inlet still embrace it and the influx of cash it brings to the area.
Myrtle Beach ended up being the laughing stock of the area.
If they really want to end the problem, the municipality has a year to work with their lawyers to figure out legislation that will A) impose strict limits on noise and traffic behavior during times when vehicular events are taking place, and B) allow them to impound the vehicles of drivers who violate said limits. Owners can only get their vehicles back after the cases are adjudicated and the (certainly exorbitant) fines are paid. I'm not saying I condone such an approach, as it is rife with potential for exploitation and generally rather Draconian, but it will squash the problem.
Absolutely . To our eyes and standards it is. But the population has more than doubled. Almost tripled since I was born.
Life has less value nowdays. Notoriety seems to be of greater value than decency. Which is what is driving a lot of America's youth.
Preparenthood. Or even preinvolvement with the fairer sex amplifies that base nature.
Finally. Less than 2% of. Americans have military experiance. Of that 2% only 5% are ever involved in combat.
We boomers came from parents who's early life was deeply involved in military. Parents of even Uber Rich were drafted or volunteered. Sharing risks and life threatening experiences. Then we were exposed to our own share of military risks with the draft. Some Uber rich parents lost their child. So commonly shared values were still the norm.
Unlike today. With its volunteer military where those without a path to success and the middle class.
Many Millenials trying to achieve success through education have found instead of an upwards path the debt used to acquire that degree prevents them from achieving it. The along come the Great Recession, the pandemic and they don't have a path upwards.
In reply to frenchyd :
Huh?
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