Am I in the wrong?

[JP1738]

Alright so here's what happened on my first ever trip to Roxboro Motorsports Park last Saturday for their 6.0 index and bracket race with my RX7.

Side note, I have the entire run recorded on first person camera. If anyone needs to see the evidence or watch it for themselves, I can send it, no problem.

In the bracket race, I made a stellar lap of .004 and one above 2nd round, which earned me the bye-run the following round. So I go up to the staging lanes for third round. I pull into the bye lane beside where everyone else is lining up. As the staging lanes begin to dwindle, I realize that I will have a bye. I asked the head of staging, and he says that I will be granted a bye. I get completely dressed helmet on and pulled to the head of staging where I am stopped. I wait for a few moments and find that another car has pulled into the staging lanes behind me and I am informed that I will have to run him. Oh well, not a big deal. I was planning on having to win the round anyway so whatever. That was a bit annoying, but then the guy drags *** getting ready. He checked his tires, took his time getting dressed, getting in the car, getting buckled in. The whole time, I am fully dressed, helmet on in the car at the head of staging and it?s very hot outside. Now I understand making the call late so I genuinely wasn?t upset about having to wait, however, in the moment I was positively annoyed at not being granted the bye and having to wait for this guy to get ready. Finally, he makes his way to the head of staging and we are ready to race. Everything begins normally, we do our burn out, roll up and pre-stage. Then he decides he doesn?t want to stage.

At this point, I?m about ready to have a cow. You mean to tell me you?re going to narrowly miss missing the call, make me wait an extra 5 minutes while in the car, helmet on, finally come up to race and now you won?t stage either?? I?d had enough. I decided that he would absolutely stage first. We sat pre staged for a bit, maybe 20 seconds or so. Then I stalled my car up and started bumping towards the fully staged position with no intention of actually fully staging. Wanted to give the guy something to look at at least. I got very near the staged position, flickered the bulb once and stopped. I was not staged and never was, only flickering the bottom bulb one time. Well I suppose he thought I fully staged and never checked again. He staged shortly after I flickered the bulb, set the transbrake, and decked it. I AM NOT YET STAGED. I then stalled mine up again, bumped once more to stage. All the while he is on the 2-step waiting for the tree to come down. By the time I got in and set, he?d been on the popper for a solid 4 seconds or so. Tree flashes and I let go .007, get to half track and nobody's home. I let out and go .30 above, my opponent never moved. Not sure what happened on his side.

Obviously I know he couldn?t possibly be happy about what just transpired, and I thought he might have something to say to me about it. Despite ample time between rounds, he never came by. The next round, I went up to staging and there he was again. Evidently he had been doubled and had won with his first entry and was pulled out for the bye with that entry 4th round. Well woopty-do good for him. Took the loss next to me but still was making a 4th round appearance on the bye-run. I made no effort to look his way or say anything to him about what happened, I was trying to focus on the round ahead and make another good lap. AS I AM ABOUT TO CLIMB IN THE CAR he chooses that moment to stop me and start running his mouth about the previous round. Saying things like ?why don?t you pull that piece of **** out of line, come to the back, and try that **** again? and other ugly things. Again, I was trying to get in the car to compete in the next round and this was quite disturbing at the time. I felt like if he had an issue with how the previous pass went, he would?ve come and spoken to me between rounds in private, but he elected to wait until I was about to make my next run and run his mouth off in front of everyone in the staging lanes. I thought to myself, you are the one who forgot how to stage, the tree will not activate with 3 stage bulbs lit up, but at the time, all I could come up with to say was ?are we gonna have a problem??

Thankfully the promoter of the race stepped in and put an end to the brief argument, but I didn?t appreciate what was said or the timing at all.

Were his actions warranted? I may not be completely blameless here, but I felt the smear and trash talk in the lanes was completely out of bounds and absolutely should not have happened. If y?all finish this book, feel free to let me know what you all think. I?ve attempted to reach out to the guy on Facebook to discuss what went down but I haven?t heard anything back.

Too long, didn?t read: a man forgot how to stage and got upset about it.