I have a few more comments and observations to make and then I will shut up.
I have dealt with many irate people during my lifetime. I was a football coach for 13 years, a basketball referee and a baseball umpire off and on for a period of twenty years. When a coach's livelihood depends on an official's call, it can be become very frustrating. The coach looks around, trying to find some to blame, when something bad happens. His frustration is usually directed at an official.
This is true for racing, as well as an athletic contest. During my years of officiating, I learned that the best way to get along with coaches was to first understand that coaching is how they make a living and to tell them what you saw and why you made a call a certain way. That includes taking the blame when you blow a call.
The best way to handle an irate coach is to let him cool off and they tell him that you blew the call. You can't change the call, but you can apologize for missing a call or making a bad call. They have no idea what to say, but you gain a lot of respect.
These same principles apply to racing, especially if some got hurt. If you race long enough, you will get into situations where you cause someone to wreck, whether intentional or not.
The best way to handle the situation is to go and apologize and take the blame. If the other guy is looking for someone to blame for the accident, you have satisfied this need. What is he going to say? You have already said it.
I am sure that the F2 did not intentionally cause the wreck on Friday. I think that he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We are good friends with the Owens family. Mitch and Gary are very close friends. I went to the Owens' trailer after the wreck and I did not see Mr. Farmer, who was parked directly across from Gary, go over and, at least, inquire about Gary. He seemed to be more concerned about the condition of his own car. He loaded everything up and pulled out of the pits, shortly after the races were over.
A few words of advice:
1. Not everyone can get into a race car and go fast. If it was easy to drive a race car, everyone would be doing it. It takes time and a lot of advice from the ones that have been there.
2. If you go through the pits and talk to the drivers, they will all give you the same advice, until you learn how to drive, find a line around the race track and stay there. If they know where you are going to be, they can go around you, even if you are going slow. If you are going slow and moving all over the race track, they don't know what to do.
3. New drivers seem to have a big problem on the start of a race, when they are on the front row. Everyone is trying to get to the front, as quick as possible. Until you learn how to get through turns 1 and 2, get on the back. Things look a lot different from the back and you are not going to cause as many problems for the other drivers. If you start a heat race on the pole and come out of turn two on the back, you are probably starting in they wrong place.
4. If you are consistently going from the front to the back in one lap, you might as well start in the back. From the back, you can make a mistake, without causing problems. You can also run harder into turn one and if you spin out, you have done nothing bad, other than cause a restart of the race.
5. If you still happen to cause a wreck, apologize and take, at least, part of the blame and everyone will feel better about things.
That's all I have to say. I am putting my soap box away for today.
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