Are You An Angry Driver?

[bloodyboyblue]

Racing is a contact sport so generally I don’t care about light or incidental contact. That’s just part of it. Also if someone is much faster than me they have every right to move me out of the groove and go by, that’s my fault for not paying attention or giving them room. That rarely happens though, usually people can figure out another way to go past. And last lap, anything goes.

My triggers are mostly just people who drive like you aren’t there (especially people who drive straight off the corner and shove you into the grass when you’ve been on their outside both before and during the corner) and people who block. I generally give them a 3 strike policy (and the driving has to be either obviously deliberate or extremely careless). I usually retaliate with a light bump somewhere that causes maximum pain, with a large runoff like the last corner of Big Willow. But I will never retaliate if it’s going to affect innocent bystanders. I’ll only do it if it only is going to affect that single player.

Generally though, I rarely retaliate during the same race. I usually like to keep their name filed away and pay them back months or years later.

I race the same people all the time in FIA races, and I race all 19 people on track in totally different ways. I generally give people as much room as I can and never aggressively defend positions (other than on the last lap), but if someone has wronged me in the past I will make life as difficult as possible for them. I’m not going to ram them off the track but I’ll make my car about 50 feet wide and make them burn off their tires extra quickly, and just generally be as tough to pass as a kidney stone. I’m not going to do them any favours in qualifying either. Luckily that list is pretty short, but my memory is long. There’s one specific guy who pushed me off track multiple times in a race at Willow a year and a half ago I’m still not giving any courtesy to. To say nothing of the guy who intentionally rammed me out of 2nd place at the end of the Supra race a few weeks ago. He’s getting the lifetime deal.

 

[MaxAttack]

I trained myself as a sim-rally driver before training as a sim-racer, silly as those terms are.

Hitting things in Rally is bad, so I generally try to avoid solid objects. I tend to write off any bumps I take as incidental - nobody's perfect, and I've certainly done it myself.

I try to keep my driving style somewhere between Markku Alen - push hard whenever possible, and don't push where pushing will kill you, and Timo Salonen - one hand on the wheel, try to enjoy yourself.

My philosophy is the moment you stop enjoying being on track, finish that race (no-one likes a quitter) and take a break. Fun is all I'm really after. If someone thinks punting me off is fun, I'm not giving them the satisfaction of ragequitting or stooping to their level, but by and large I think out and out dirtiness isn't quite as common in GTS as it seems.

 

[Leggacy]

Multiple S.W.A.T teams dispatched to the guys who voted yes!

 

[Leggacy]

I’m always happy to give space and let others get past if I make a mistake or if I’m much slower. If I get annoyed it’s usually because of another drivers fault but I never attempt revenge. Always remember that the guy that just slammed into you might have been hit in to that situation by some other careless tw@! If I find myself behind a difficult opponent I’ll just follow and wait for them to make a mistake from over aggressive driving.

 

[kilesa4568]

The different camera views and the possibility of people not checking their rear view often enough or not having the radar on might come into play for most incidents. There's got to be some leeway when L1 is close to useless in a pack and the radar takes your eyes off the road at the most awkward moments.

It's dumb that you always have to their view into consideration. Usually with gritted teeth.

 

[Greycap]

I think there were only two times I purposely returned the favour. Out of 322 races... I think that's still acceptable.

The first one was in a one-make Impreza GrB road car race at Maggiore, the one that hit me came straight across the grass aiming at my rear quarter panel without even trying to brake (checked the replay later) entering the double right near the end of the lap and unsurprisingly I went quite quickly sideways over to the run-off on the left. No idea what happened next though, I managed to keep the car facing the right way and somehow caught up with the offender at the first corner of the following lap. Ohhhh they went hard into the wall. I don't think I even got a penalty for that.

The second one was in a Tsukuba one-make, I've forgotten the car but the one behind me had been giving me bumps in nearly every corner for a couple of laps already and then tapped me enough to ruin my exit onto the back straight enough to get halfway alongside. The offender probably didn't realize that the pit road entry board isn't styrofoam when I began slowly squeezing them to the right. Easily the fastest something-to-zero deceleration I've ever seen in my gaming career. In the next race I received a lot of strong words and a kamikaze attack which ended up in the offender missing me completely, getting buried very deep in the sandtrap and then ragequitting.

 

[stpatty]

Very angry, but I don't get into physical squabbles on track over it.

 

[Leggacy]

Some wise words from master splinter

 

[RedRockValley]

I do get that feeling of wanting to punt them into the shadow realm but I don't let it take over me.

These dirty racers want you to feel that way, they want you to get angry with them too so you ultimately get dragged down to their level and possibly mess up doing so.

The trick is just to just try your best to ignore their "advances" calmly. Once the dirty driver sees you aren't going to put up with their tricks and can effectively outmanoeuvre them, you have won their mindgame.

This all applies mainly to more competitive levels of play though. I'm not talking hardcore griefers, I'm talking those who just try to bend the rules of contact a liiittle too much.

 

[sturk0167]

If someone hits me once or twice, I assume it's accident. If it's more than that, I start thinking about it. When you're next to someone on a straightaway, and they swerve to hit you, there's no doubt.
On the rare occasion that I've seen somebody hit one of my friends, I've completely lost my 🤬, and unloaded both barrels on them!
It's just a game. Race etiquette is a farce.
I don't have a desire to hit other cars, but when they've earned it, I won't hesitate to deliver.
There are 4 guys on my "hit on sight" list.

 

[VBR]

I'm totally cool, calm, & calculating when I race. I'm mostly thinking way ahead, doing math with my sector times/lap times & working out my best possible finishing place. I'm also thinking about various tactics & how to best pass people ahead; watching the driver in front & studying his lines working out where his weaknesses are so I can use them to my advantage, Or, if up against faster drivers, how to stay in front/lose the least amount of places & learn from them to better myself. I'm extremely focused when racing, & have little to no time for emotion, especially anger; that tends to turn people into idiots IMHO. Even when I went on a real-life track day, I was calm as a cucumber the whole time, & I had no issues at all with nervousness.

I can only remember deliberately retaliating once, & that was in a GT5 shuffle race many years ago. I can also remember playing hardball with someone who seemed to want to race BTCC style, so there was some deliberate roughness during that race evening. But apart from those two instances, I always race with a no deliberate contact mentality. Yes, accidental/incidental contact happens, but it's not malicious or on purpose for my part. I always apologise for any contact after a race, & usually give a place back if I gained it unfairly. If people are deliberately rough with me or are incompetent, they go on my PSN block list, end of.

That said I don't race at all in Sport mode, & all of my online racing was done in previous GT titles.

 

[RacingFan1]

If he hits me once no (can be a simple mistake), if its twice or more in very short time, definitely yes
I must confess, I like to teach a lesson to dirty drivers.

 

[kilesa4568]

I'm totally cool, calm, & calculating when I race. I'm mostly thinking way ahead, doing math with my sector times/lap times & working out my best possible finishing place. I'm also thinking about various tactics & how to best pass people ahead; watching the driver in front & studying his lines working out where his weaknesses are so I can use them to my advantage, Or, if up against faster drivers, how to stay in front/lose the least amount of places & learn from them to better myself. I'm extremely focused when racing, & have little to no time for emotion, especially anger; that tends to turn people into idiots IMHO. Even when I went on a real-life track day, I was calm as a cucumber the whole time, & I had no issues at all with nervousness.

I can only remember deliberately retaliating once, & that was in a GT5 shuffle race many years ago. I can also remember playing hardball with someone who seemed to want to race BTCC style, so there was some deliberate roughness during that race evening. But apart from those two instances, I always race with a no deliberate contact mentality. Yes, accidental/incidental contact happens, but it's not malicious or on purpose for my part. I always apologise for any contact after a race, & usually give a place back if I gained it unfairly. If people are deliberately rough with me or are incompetent, they go on my PSN block list, end of.

That said I don't race at all in Sport mode, & all of my online racing was done in previous GT titles.

The perfect racing mentality but Sport Mode may put you to the test. Seeing SR downs off the impatient driver behind you or getting bumped off line several times will see anyone's frustration levels creep up.

I've admitted punting one person off track and at the time, I couldn't believe I'd done it. I'd had a string of frustrating races but I wouldn't say I was angry. Irked maybe but definitely not angry. The crazy thing is this was a year ago and I can still replay it in my head. I'd been punted at T1 of Maggiore by the same person 4 times in 3 or 4 races. Twice in one race. Going into that corner behind them for a change, I did the same thing and turned into this guy...

I switched to lobby racing instead. I don't want to be ^^ that guy.

 

[Nielsen]

Many things in this world piss me off, but driving doesn't.

 

[Groundfish]

Well, last night I was punted when in lead last turn. Multiple replays from multiple races revealed a dirty player.
Today I punted him gently to get by last lap...
It’s not really anger at all, just racing. If you are dirty, people will remember and payback. Imo it’s enforcing a culture of good racing. If players learn that other players will be pacifists when cheated upon the cheating will continue.
If cheating players get by and are immediately punted they will learn.
It’s basic dog psychology.

 

[kilesa4568]

Couldn't agree more that some people deserve a little justice dished out but all these lessons usually have a butterfly effect. Whether it's them coming back on track or you've flipped their Hannibal Lecter switch, other people can and do get drawn into it.

Letting it go is so much easier said than done as there's some proper numpties out there but you've got to draw the line somewhere and look at damage limitation.

 

[Groundfish]

What I see racing in some upper rooms is a culture.
It’s easy to maintain sr in these rooms. People have good control over their vehicles.
There are however players who use the shove way too much.
I do agree about the butterfly effect though. That’s true.
In karting back in the day it was open wheel. No protection between the wheels. Irl if a guy was being a jerk, he would get ‘calibrated’ by you sticking a wheel in on him.
Inside front in between his inside front and rear, light brake...He’s airborne. That was standard practice to teach overaggressive drivers to calm down.
In vid game, it’s best to be a pacifist at all times, but if after watching a player through multiple race replays you see a pattern then to me it’s open season to dive bomb shove pit maneuver brake check and punt him.
I’ve even done kamikaze as some here know.
95 percent of the races I do in upperrooms are real fun and fair, so I have no problem ‘calibrating’ a bad apple here and there...The advantage of maintaining sr is you don’t have to take bs if you don’t want to.

 

[kilesa4568]

Fair points.👍

 

[gtp_Lee]

This whole poll surprises me; I've thought there would be a lot more people that usually return the favor but I guess not.

Back on topic, I actually got very angry at Daily B today. I was driving the 86 Gr.4 and my main opponent for a battle for third place was a very clean and fast driver (who I won't name shame). We had a very good battle and I ended up ahead by the last lap, but going into the last corner the guy just rammed me off! I could've stayed on track, but if he was going to play dirty all of a sudden, I was not gonna have any of it. I let my car go off road, giving him a 10 second penalty as I rejoined slightly there after, and he ended up in 6th because of it.

I know someone on here is probably going to say "why would you game the penalty system, it's unfair", well, so is a downright ram when they see they just can't win. I'm not going to hit them back, and instead just play it more intelligently.

 

[MaxAttack]

This whole poll surprises me; I've thought there would be a lot more people that usually return the favor but I guess not.

Back on topic, I actually got very angry at Daily B today. I was driving the 86 Gr.4 and my main opponent for a battle for third place was a very clean and fast driver (who I won't name shame). We had a very good battle and I ended up ahead by the last lap, but going into the last corner the guy just rammed me off! I could've stayed on track, but if he was going to play dirty all of a sudden, I was not gonna have any of it. I let my car go off road, giving him a 10 second penalty as I rejoined slightly there after, and he ended up in 6th because of it.

I know someone on here is probably going to say "why would you game the penalty system, it's unfair", well, so is a downright ram when they see they just can't win. I'm not going to hit them back, and instead just play it more intelligently.

Honestly? I'm a very clean-minded racer, and I probably would do the same. Sometimes the penalty system needs a little motivation to do its job; however if I take a shunt and think I can still make the corner with a bit of adjustment, id much sooner do that than ruin my line just to make the penalty trigger. It depends how hard the hit is, but I hate to break the flow of the race. But I don't really see it as dirty making sure the penalty sticks, unless you are deliberately making contact then exiting the track to hand out undeserved ones.

 

[George Jakob]

If you're in an online race and someone hits you, do you think it's right to hit them back?

Most of the time no because things happen in racing but if someone is a rammer ill take him with me.

 

[VBR]

The perfect racing mentality but Sport Mode may put you to the test. Seeing SR downs off the impatient driver behind you or getting bumped off line several times will see anyone's frustration levels creep up.

Indeed! I got fed up of being punted off in GT5 Prologue with its random matchmaking racing. As soon as the lobby system came out in GT5 I've never looked back. Sport Mode is a huge step backwards IMHO, & is the cause of a lot of problems. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

 

[kilesa4568]

This whole poll surprises me; I've thought there would be a lot more people that usually return the favor but I guess not.

Most of the GTP crowd have been around the block several times so it's by no means a definitive vote but from what I've seen in my leisurely, watching how everyone races, races, I'd expect the 'yes' votes to be more too. There's some angry people out there.

I could've stayed on track, but if he was going to play dirty all of a sudden, I was not gonna have any of it. I let my car go off road, giving him a 10 second penalty as I rejoined slightly there after, and he ended up in 6th because of it.

I imagine some people think I do that too but if I have to go off track to maintain control after a bump, it's all on them. I'm not going to risk facing backwards trying to avoid their penalty.

 

[Rizla]

I do sometimes wish we could put boxing gloves on our drivers after a race, then go K.O the bampot who t-boned you on the first lap.

 

[Shearzy]

When I begin each and every race. I'm a happy driver. God damn I'm just peachy keen.

But when I continue to be rammed off the course by a specific region, it gets to be a bit much. Then I become the angry/frustrated driver

Having started a new account, I can put a few feelers out. If my left eye isn't twitching, I'll be content for a bit

 

[zorrofox]

I made my choice before I read your OP. I ticked Yes but really that's not in GTS. In real life? That's another issue. I'm surrounded by French drivers. There is no other way.

 

[Z Crazy]

...But when I continue to be rammed off the course by a specific region, it gets to be a bit much. Then I become the angry/frustrated driver...

Yeah the Central - South American crowd is largely overly aggressive, but that's not to say the US doesn't have it share chrome horn cowboys...

Unfortunately, I got a first hand look at that over the weekend. 13 Clean races in a row (trying to get the 16 streak) and whamm... a 1 second lead dived bombed away. He said he was sorry and I believed it, but that was par for the course (at least for him). I had dodged him 5 or 6 times during the course of the two or three days that streak took so in effect, I knew my luck was going to run out at some point. He was always lined up right behind me, so again... it was always going to happen. And yes... he came from "that" region. Fast driver, but he made a lot of mistakes and used a lot of contact in his racing.

 

[Leggacy]

It’s not just the people on track that can ruin your race.
This weekend I sent an irrelevant message to group chat for the Supra cup, while the race was on. This caused a distraction for at least one player in that group. @stpatty, I am truly sorry for that. I didn’t think of the timing due to large amount of booze. I know it’s not really an excuse so please remember kids, radio/message silence at all time during a race sessions.

 

[zorrofox]

Does the mic work in GT Sport? I have the Gold headphones and all I hear is the road and the engine.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

It may look like I'm retaliating, since I tend to place my car in defensively advantageous positions when racing against dirty drivers, but I do not chase people down to get back at them. You waste far too much speed and time trying to fight with people and it's never worth it.