Nascar driver stuns to qualify for championship with GameCube move
nintendolife.com
nintendolife.com
Just before he reached the end zone, with 17 seconds remaining, Stokley cut right at 90 degrees and ran across the field. Six seconds drained off the clock before, at last, he meandered across the goal line to score the winning touchdown. For certain football fans, the excitement of a last-minute comeback now commingled with the shock of the familiar: It's hard to think of a better example of a professional athlete doing something so obviously inspired by the tactics of videogame football. When I caught up with Stokley by telephone a few weeks later, I asked him point-blank: "Is that something out of a videogame?" "It definitely is," Stokley said. "I think everybody who's played those games has done that" — run around the field for a while at the end of the game to shave a few precious seconds off the clock. Stokley said he had performed that maneuver in a videogame "probably hundreds of times" before doing it in a real NFL game.
The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive.
What the existence of video games does, is allow people to do things like this in an environment where social expectations and pressure don't really exist. It's like a psychological primer. You do it so many times in the video game, more and more you think, gee, why not do this in real life?
When coaches are able to find a loophole to burn additional seconds off the clock, they are celebrated for it [1], and the rules are typically amended for the following year to prevent similar abuses.
[1] https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/10/19/mike-vrabel...
The existence of video games brings people together on a level playing field where they are free to explore their ideas and refine strategies over a length of time far longer than anyone can actually play the game in reality.
You see it to a more immediate effect in games such as Dota2, League, etc. Professional level players regularly play with amateurs and non-professionals and you notice that ideas propagate throughout the community readily.
Obviously there is a certain barrier to entry for physical sports and the online equivalent to share in ideas, but with how far sports-based games will go striving for realism (all the iterations of Football Manager come to mind), it wouldn't be hard to imagine that in the future strategies will be tested virtually before being employed in real.
Meet Max Verstappen[0], current reigning 2-time F1 world champion, who credits a lot of his success to how much time he spends playing racing simulators online. Seen here[1] doing something ridiculous, which works in the sim; he hasn't pulled this move on-track yet, but if he does it won't suprise me. Incidentally, most of the current generation of F1 drivers are also sim racers.
I think what these people are doing is creating goals for themselves in virtual spaces, to strive for in real space. The OP video couldn't have happened except in the exact situation that driver was in, his mind was habituated to trying to make that move, and he knew his car and track enough to make the correct call re: risk. The video game experience is only one part of that, but it's a crucial part. The rest came from real world racing experience.
[0] https://www.teamredline.com/work/max-verstappen/
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rC81KMPM9Q
Addendum to explain the video I've linked:
The streamer who is recording is close enough to the car ahead (Max Verstappen) that he gets pulled along by the slipstream effect (caused by the vacuum created behind the car ahead as it cuts through the air). This reduces the aerodynamic drag on the streamer's car, and allows him to accelerate more than the car ahead.
Normally (i.e. in meatspace racing), in this situation, the following car would wait as long as possible in the slipstream, until right before the next braking zone, then take a sharp turn out from behind the leading car, pass them (with the faster acceleration), and then try to brake later than the leading car before turning into the next corner, ensuring they'd go into the corner first, and thus come out of the corner first.
In this clip, Max anticipated all of the above, moved out from in front of the following car (breaking the slipstream himself), braked much earlier than a racing driver normally would (allowing the streamer's car to temporarily pass him), and used the time he lost to assess the streamer's racing line (read: vector) into the corner. Then he aimed his own car into the gap between that line and the corner of the track, and used the extra space to accelerate earlier than the streamer. By doing this, he negated every advantage the streamer had gained from the slipstream, and stayed ahead.
Clock management is a pretty big aspect of (American) football strategy and very much expected. I don't think anyone considers it gaming the rules. Just off the top of my head:
- Teams with comfortable leads tend to switch to conservative play calling. This keeps the ball safe and the clock running.
- Inside of 2:00, getting tackled on the field keeps the clock running. But running out of bounds or throwing an incomplete pass will stop the clock. So plays are always chosen to take advantage of this.
- Quarterbacks will spike the ball to quickly the stop the clock (incomplete pass).
- Calling a timeout stops the clock, so teams save these for the 2:00 drill. The 2:00 warning also stops the clocks, teams consider this a free timeout.
- Coaches will call timeout just as a kicker is about to kick a field goal. This is called "freezing the kicker". When timed right, it makes the kicker have to kick it again.
The difference, of course, is that basketball is a fast-paced, high-scoring game, and the entertainment value suffers mightily when it is slowed down. Soccer is about deliberately building to a scoring opportunity, so forcibly speeding up the game would simply ruin the structure. Obviously, "turtling" can be a bit of a problem as a result, but it's not hard for a team to sacrifice some defensive structure to press for a turnover.
Explicit clock management is part of the game.
But if you start messing around when the other team has ended pursuit, you are definitely breaking an "unwritten rule" (of which there are many in sports).
Behaviors like this will typically result in some variation of an on-field fight, which honestly seems like a pretty fair means of enforcement.
Conservative play calling with a lead, particularly on defense, is known to reduce your chances of holding the lead. Sticking to more balanced tactics leads to losses that look more spectacular, but fewer of them.
And depending on how you look at the stats, the "icing the kicker" timeout either doesn't really work, or only works if done before the offense is set, which is not when most coaches call it.
Football is a really interesting sport above/behind the field.
It’s almost inverted. The expectation is often for gamers to be as exploitative as possible. There is a lot of hilarity to be had by all with a play that gets a win in ann unexpected way, and it has quite a culture around it. It can go too far to be sure, but in good measure it’s often what is best about multiplayer games.
In single-player games, given the opportunity, gamers will optimize for all kinds of cheese and hilarity never expected by the designers. Doubly so with the modern Internet, where sharing videos of your silly play confers social status in relevant on-line groups.
Don't know about current state of WoW, but the other two games you mention, and games like Overwatch or even StarCraft 2, are hollowed out and devoid of substance, because the competitive multiplayer makes everyone focused on meta.
The transition from elementary school sports to middle school sports is pretty jarring. By the time you get to high school they've started weeding out anyone who enjoys the game versus dominating other people in preparation for college and the few who become pros.
Video games just make this obvious to kids who don't like sports.
The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them. This let's them pick the categories with environments that are most fun optimized which is where the hilarity comes.
> The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them.
Yes. That's the distinction that matters.
Certainly not true, it's a game design issue that comes up all the time. Even in the context of casual solo play, players will generally be driven by the very human instincts of risk aversion, resource accumulation, and seeking efficiency. It takes good design to make this behaviour be in line with having fun.
If anything, it's multiplayer environments that are easier to steer towards that, and also allow room for just horsing around.
Live sports are with people and people don't like watching others be manipulated.
The problem is that these kinds of strategies are boring to watch, have little counter play, and only interesting the first time around — as soon as it enters the meta, it’s just boring. In this case it’d probably be fine, but if you spent two minutes doing it? It’d be awful.
Exactly the same as it goes in video games — it’s fun to see people exploiting elements the game, when it adds complexity to the match. When it reduces it, like an infinite combo, regardless of how mechanically complex or novel a puzzle solution it might be, it just detracts.
Good examples of this are bunny hopping and rollout doomfist.
I'm pretty sure I've seen lots of deceptive and misleading strategies and tactics in football and other sports, not to mention multiple forms of "faking." Also a core part of sports like football seems to be putting pressure on the person with the ball - up to and including physical tackling.
Clock/time management also seems to be a thing.
This is part of why the NASCAR move is so interesting. The driver himself notes that he was putting himself in real actual danger of crashing his car and possibly hurting himself, but he was willing to take that risk.
I would not be surprised to see this outlawed in the very near future before someone can cause a major crash trying it.
For example, the "Sean Avery" rule in hockey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Avery#The_Avery_Rule
That was a neat "exploit" and much respect to him for trying it, but it was outlawed literally the next day.
The incentive to pull off this kind of move,
running the clock down a bit, that was already
present. But there's a certain social
expectation that you won't game the rules so
blatantly, so that's a disincentive.
In basketball, football, or basically any sport with a time limit there is absolutely zero stigma or shame with regards to running out the clock if it benefits your team.
In fact, that guy would have been raked over the coals if he didn't run out the clock.
I also assure you his coach was exhorting the team to win the game by running out the clock rather than scoring with time remaining on the clock which would have given the other team another chance to score and perhaps tie/win.
I'm sure that player definitely did pull that move off in a video game, but so has everybody else, because it's also super basic football strategy!
I can probably best explain it this way: that play does not have a name, because it's pretty basic and that guy didn't invent it. Clock management is so integral to gridiron football.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_out_the_clock#American...
You probably see that move a little bit more in video games. In real life there's more that can go wrong; you have eleven guys chasing you and you do not have 360-degree awareness. The ball could be knocked away from you, etc. Worst case scenario you hurt your teammates, lose your job, etc. So you will be more conservative.
I think video games have influenced football in a lot of ways, just not that one. Particularly TV coverage - the "sky cams" on high tension wires crisscrossing the arenas, mimicking the unfettered virtual cameras in video games. Also, the superimposed CGI first down lines on the field.
http://insightreplay.com/the-story-behind-nfls-magic-yellow-...
[1]https://www.nhl.com/news/hockey-world-reacts-to-flyers-light...
Back in the day, the AI for opponents was often fairly stupid. Rather than spreading out intelligently to prevent an opponent from reaching the goal line, they would just sprint towards your current location at all times. So if you run in a bit of a loop from where it makes sense for you to actually go, you can get the opponents to chase you in a long line. Not hard to dodge them almost indefinitely in this case, allowing you to take an arbitrary amount of time off the clock. Real players won't behave like this.
> I don’t think it’s the social expectations that are at play here.
I agree, mostly, but there could be a slight effect here. It's widely known that coaches choose to punt rather than go for it on fourth down (in American football, failing to take the ball past a "first down" marker in five downs results in a turnover) much more often than they should if motivated purely to win the most games. It's speculated that coaches are disincentivized to make high-risk, high-reward choices like going for it, when trying and failing it will result in embarrassment versus taking the safe option.
Thanks for clarifying.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K3EpLn77JdQ
In this case, the rules say that if a kickoff is handled first by a player who has established themselves as out of bounds, a penalty is assessed and the ball moved to the 40 yard line. The intent is for a horribly miskicked ball to be penalized.
What you see is a special teams player knowing the rule, carefully and clearly establishing himself as out of bounds, and turning an excellently kicked ball at the one yard line into a ball 39 yards down field.
I’ve seen the commentators confused by this play before!
It took quite awhile for that logjam to break.
Imagine seeing someone pull off THAT tactic in a real game!
There's also the concept of good sportsmanship. Doing this kind of "move" could be considered disrespectful and a show of bad sportsmanship.
The other football has its time honored ways of wasting time, keeping the ball in the opponent's corner, the keeper waiting until the last second to pick up a ball, someone getting "hurt", nobody open on a throw-in, walking off for a sub, etc. Then there's the sportsmanship thing of kicking the ball out of play for an opposing player to receive treatment. How much of the time wasting is good/bad sportsmanship vs good stratechery?
Under-arming was done in modern international cricket once and ruined sporting careers.
Rolling the ball along the ground when a six was required to win made what was an exciting game into a farce. You want your team to win, but not like that. You have to question whether there wa some money put down on the side...
Same can be said for the batsman who walks. It's the right decision when you consider you want to win with no doubt as to the validity of the result. Maybe if sponsors required sportsmanship as part of their contracts you might see less of ball tampering and other dubious practices in the name of winning.
Having spent several years playing amateur football in my youth, I can attest that the game would be vastly improved if the clock never stopped and the teams had set time limits between the end of one play the beginning of the next. Christ I got so tired of the dicking around.
For example, if its 4th down and you are leading by more than 2 points with very little time left on the clock, what do you do? One option is to punt and have the punter run out of the back of his own endzone. It gives the opponent 2 points, but is a very safe play.
I've also seen teams run a punt play, but the offensive linemen intentionally commit holding to maximize the amount of time that the punter (or qb) holds onto the ball in the backfield while the clock runs. The clock doesn't stop until the ball hits the ground if a qb throws, so a high long pass just out of bounds can burn a few seconds too.
Hmm, lets see... also letting an opponent score a TD happens somewhat regularly. And often the player will slide instead of scoring. Video game players do that, but the idea didn't start there.
Another way to put it is that in American sports like baseball, basketball, and football, the rules are considered part of the game, and using the rules to your advantage shows respect for the game. With soccer, by contrast, people often talk about an essence of the game that transcends the rules, which the rules only approximate, and it seems like there is a different relationship to the rules as a result. Rules are a necessary evil that serve the higher essence of the game, and if you are too concerned with the rules people might feel like you are disrespecting the higher essence that they serve. At least that has been my impression from spectators and amateurs, in my experience. Competitors at higher levels of play might approach it differently.
There any many examples of players who thought they were in the clear and celebrated early, only to get tackled and fumble.
I’ve watched the QB take a knee hundreds of times to run down the clock. The difference here is his play was riskier because it would have been easier to lose possession.
There are so many moves that were obvious in video games but (bafflingly, to a kid like me) were never adopted until much, much later like:
• NFL - Going for it on 4th down
• NFL - QB spamming scramble moves (w/ Michael Vick)
• NBA - Spamming 3 pointers (w/ Steph Curry)
what clip?
Not speaking negatively about it of course - to each their own. I raced Superbikes for eight years and you might as well throw risk tolerance completely out the window with that kind of racing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASCAR_tracks#Track_ta...
When I came to the US, I was surprised that people were amazed that "the big guy can shoot 3s". I played center, but it was normal for me to work on free throws, 3 point shots, and also take the shots in the game. I couldn't really understand why players like Shaq were not able to make even free throws, nevermind 3 point shots.
I'm not saying we were all shooting as well as Curry, just that I feel like the emphasis on 3 point shots came very late to the US. It took someone like Curry for people to really internalize just how hard it is to catch up with an offense that consistently gets 3 points when they attack the basket and that yes, it's OK for all your players on the team to be good at shooting the ball.
/American football
You still see delay of game penalties by teams running down the clock fairly regularly, but it's more to just use every available second of the play clock up, typically in a situation where the distance loss isn't very important (like right before a punt).
Of course, the score ended up being just that towards the end of the game, and then the players on both teams just stood still and passed the ball between themselves running down the last 8 minutes or so of the clock.
I do believe in football (soccer for americans) a referee will intervene if players are obviously stalling (e.g. by not playing, or the goalkeeper just holding onto the ball) but they can just go back and forth for a bit.
Probably also happens in boxing and other time related sports.
Basically security and similar attacks that were practical on computers have now become practical in real life.
Think of one person annoying a business. But now what the same person annoys a business repeatedly? Or someone and all his friends annoy a business repeatedly? attack, denial of service attack, distributed denial of service attack.
there are probably lots of other examples
As the games have become closer to a simulation, kids that are football fans get a lot free time where they control both the offense and the defense. They get to make calls, and see how every player in the team should move, and how it makes a difference. It in no way replaces actual football practice, but it boosts a lot of what you can ask a middling high school team to do.
Even in the pros, you'll hear people talk about how so-and-so is "like another coach, but on the field", because knowledge of the game overall, and the system they play in, matters. Years of videogame football, instead of having to learn even the very basics from scratch, makes things easier.
You want to burn the clock if you have the ball and 17 seconds remaining, because you don't want the other team to have a chance to retaliate.
It's a very delicate balance and one of the most difficult "coach" decisions football has, and it applies throughout the game, and changes based on how your offense and defense are doing vs theirs (do you score fast and hope to defend and score again, or do you score slow and hope to defend only, etc).
2) A lot of times something like this is how you form some new regulations - it's truly one of those "You know, this was excellent but we can't do it again" situations.
3) The best course forward is to leave it alone and legal in this moment, publicize it, but also treat it as the formation of some new rules.
Side note, Nascar 2005, which he referenced as one of his inspirations for this, is one of my favorite gamecube games. I remember picking it up and playing it for hours on end, the soundtrack was awesome, and it didn't feel like an EA cash-grab at the time. Man how times have changed...
Edit: Extra info - the 11 of Hamlin has previously made it into the chase for the champion ship by _intentionally wrecking drivers_ , so by and large a huge part of the fan base believes he got what was coming to him.
At least the way F1 does KERS is more controlled and logical (maximum amount of charge = maximum amount of additional horsepower you can deploy per lap)
Do you mean impractically long drag races where lol turns out I wasn't flooring it and now I'm really flooring it? That aspect of redline doesn't make any sense.
Or maybe just the competitors build their own cars and anything goes? I could get behind that. Racing seemed more pure back when it was dudes who built their own cars in their own garage.
now, the "fanboost" which gave certain drivers (almost always the same handful for years one end) an additional "push to pass" option based on social media voting -- that shit sucked. it's also gone next season.
Reminds me of an England v Italy rugby match a few years back where Italy completely abused the offside rule that resulted in England, seemingly, wanting the rules changed after that match (though Eng still won).
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/feb/26/england-sugges...
I don't watch Nascar, but as from comments from other places, there is nothing new with it. It has been known and attempted by others now and then [1]. It is a high risk high reward move and this time it turned out good.
If it wasn't regulated so far, I don't think it will be.
[1] e.g. from just a year ago: https://racingnews.co/2021/09/06/kyle-larson-attempts-nascar...
When limiting the size of the fuel cell to x gallons, they neglected to specify the size of the fuel line. More fuel capacity is an advantage late in the race, allowing for the potential to not have to pit for a splash of gas or have to drive as conservatively.
Well, a 3" line has a couple of gallon capacity if it extends the length of the car, and at one point, someone won because of it, and then had it discovered in the technical inspection.
Check out the "reverse torque special" where he reversed the direction of his engine, so the tq pull would naturally turn him in the correct direction for nascar
Or when he modified the roof and raised the floor to get a more aerodynamic car
Or when he qualified with wheel covers, and cut them out before the race ( rules didn't stipulate you had to cut them before qualifying )
The guy was a legend, and I think racing would be much more interesting if we had more of him
Or load the car with cold (more dense) fuel.
Or (allegedly) race a 15/16ths scale car with a matching 15/16ths scale street car strategically parked in the track parking lot so the scrutineers could compare against a stock car and see that it matched.
Or built a race engine with the correct size cylinder in the easiest to measure location and oversized cylinders in every other position.
Other racers had special lead-filled radios and overweight helmets that would be in the car for tech, then get changed out before qualifying. Or lead shot filled in the frame rails and a wax seal or threaded fitting to keep it in. Darrell Waltrip tells a hilarious story where the threaded seal was in the jack point and NASCAR jacked the car to go look for it. Moving bars of Mallory (tungsten, basically) from the right to left after passing tech. Another racer was caught with a 22 gallon tank (20 was the limit at the time), apologized and agreed to change it. (He changed it to a 28 gallon tank.)
This is why F1 specifies fuel capacities and flow rates in kilograms.
They didn't mention Smokey by name, but it was clearly an allusion to that.
I personally don't see this happening a lot. I raced motorcycles at the professional level for several years. If someone had continued doing something that gave them a 3 to 5 second advantage on the last lap, the rest of the paddock would have gotten tired of it pretty quickly. Although I think it's a hilarious situation, I would imagine if it continues to happen that the drivers doing it will start to feel pressure from the other drivers.
If it gets to where this is happening all the time, I don't see the series not making a rule against it, but they are probably gladly accepting the needed publicity at this point.
This tactic will wear the car out far too much to be used on multiple laps, so it may just get race fans to experience more excitement and interest on the last lap.
At the moment I'm looking forward to the last corner/last lap of one of these short track races with a lot of money or championship at stake. I picture it playing out exactly like the first corner in a Forza online multiplayer race. One or two players staying in the race line, two other drivers dive bombing, four others bouncing off the wall on the outside, resulting in a mess of fiberglass, tears, and mad drivers. I just hope a fan in the stands doesn't catch a loose part.
Nothing at all. Everyone will end up doing it on the last half lap at short tracks and no one will have an advantage, lots of cars will get torn up, and owners will ask NASCAR to stop making them tear up a $250K racecar every short track race.
I mean if they start equipping cars with side wheels then it becomes a different matter, but I'm pretty sure the cars are already tightly regulated.
That's exactly what happened in the cycling world when UCI decided they needed to ban the "supertuck"[1]
[1]: https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a35566614/uci-supertuck-ban...
[1] https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/...
For example, there’s “Félix Erausquín”, who invented a javelin throwing technique you probably never heard of.
http://rethinkingathletics.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-javelin-...:
However the true revolution of javelin throw came in 1956 when a 49 year old spaniard, Félix Erausquín, invented what came to be called the “spanish style”. Erausquín was a specialist of shot put and discus throw (with several national titles and records) but also of the “barra vasca” which consists in throwing a heavy rod using a rotational technique. Erausquín adapted the style of the barra to javelin throw with a greased hand and managed a throw of 83.40 m at a few centimetres of the world record.
[…]
Could the spaniards have won the 1956 Olympic javelin title? Yes and no. Had they kept the style secret till Melbourne they would certainly have taken the javelin world by surprise. However at the beginning of October, a month and a half before the Games, Salcedo used the new style during a competition in Paris. This opened the way for experimentation with the new technique to non-spanish athletes but also alerted the instances of the international federation who by the end of the month had modified the rules so as to ban the rotational technique. However, even if they had kept the secret, the athletes from Spain would not have had the occasion to throw at Melbourne since Franco’s government had, at the last moment, decided to boycott the Games.
But who's infinitely more known than his contemporaries who didn't do some interesting footnote-worthy thing like that and therefore get mentioned far less.
I bet most do not know any of the javelin winners from this last Olympics or any historical greats but now we know the awesome Félix Erausquín!
"came with the work of Dick Held (brother of the world recordman Bud Held) who introduced first the hollow-wood javelins"
Really, it doesn't matter how you throw your dagger as long as you hit the target.
And yet you know his name.
Sometimes, the rule itself is even named after the person — so your name is right there in the rulebook forevermore. They might not know who you were or what you did, but they know you did something stupid enough to require a change to the sport.
† Which is apparently something sports nerds do a lot. Here's a YouTube channel sub-series just about the origins of weird sports rules! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJiNU9JCLpM&list=PLUXSZMIiUf...
Even better is the Fosbury flop, which was just accepted as a superior technique and no rules were adjusted.
[0] https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/when-the-backstro...
2. The scooter guy decides "can't beat 'em might as well join him"
3. The poor mobility scooter being passed by all this
[1] https://www.velonews.com/news/road/filippo-ganna-smashes-uci...
1990s: going fast by leaning forward, banned
I look forward to 2100 when they will simply ban going faster than a specific speed.
> He received confirmation of his qualification for the games while working as a plasterer and temporarily residing in a Finnish mental hospital, due to lack of funds for alternative accommodation rather than as a patient.
> American League president Will Harridge, saying Veeck was making a mockery of the game, voided Gaedel's contract the next day. In response, Veeck threatened to request an official ruling on whether Yankees shortstop and reigning American League MVP Phil Rizzuto, who stood 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m), was a short ballplayer or a tall dwarf.
That's precisely why car races are boring these days. Everything is forbidden and over-regulated so there's no space for innovation anymore. Look at F1 and its bloat of regulations.
Edit: on a more serious note: The regulations are so tight to keep it exciting. Frustratingly, if the regulations are more open, one of the better funded teams will just run away with the best car. That already happened in some seasons, but would be even worse without tight regulations.
(Reading the Wikipedia article, looks like they only mention two Lotus 23s going but I think there were more)
Give us back mass dampers, active suspension, flexi-wings, dual-axis steering, and similar things. None of these are driver aids, and they aren't inherently unsafe (flexi wings might be more fragile). They were banned because it would be too expensive for everyone to have to develop it.
But the cost cap solves the problem of 'too expensive for everyone to develop it'. Everyone gets the same choice, and if a properly tuned mass-damper takes 30 million to get right, and 10 million to sort-of-work. Then people get to pick where the best cost-benefit trade-off lies.
There's one way to quickly solve this. Just mass-produce the cars and give everyone the exact same car. Then we will know who is the best racer.
Narrator: "It was Gasly."
Make fake AI drivers with a backstory and AI-generated faces and stories and people won't see the difference
[0] https://vault.si.com/vault/1974/07/29/the-flip-that-led-to-a...
Does rally (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDGJoPmR_8U) count as car racing?
Got to wonder what the spectator body count is at an event like this.
So I built a very large version of the same design out of computer punch cards taped together, and won again. I'm still proud of that.
But yes, helicopters can be safely landed this way without power (not crash landed, but actually landed, though crashing is always an option lol)
Also, gyrocopters use the same principle for all phases of controlled flight, by simply using a traction engine to move the aircraft foreword, with a free spinning, unpowered, typically fixed pitch or no cyclic control rotor providing the lift.
There's another option, which is counter-rotation along an axis parallel to the ground, and orthogonal to the direction of travel. This mechanically induces circulation, which produces lift (by the same principle that a curveball produces sideways lift.) Here's more information on this funky phenomenon: https://www.av8n.com/how/htm/airfoils.html#sec-spinners
However, there is a sort of rotation about a horizontal axis in an ordinary wing because a wing produces vortices, and this is a necessary part of the process of producing lift [1]. In heavy aircraft these vortices can be surprisingly powerful and long-lasting, to the point where they can cause smaller aircraft to lose control and even crash if they get caught in one [2].
That first reference has an excellent description of what was going on in my design [3].
[1] https://www.av8n.com/how/htm/airfoils.html#sec-circulation-v...
https://web.archive.org/web/20060323051213/http://insiderrac...
Cue "demo day": my friend forgot about the project and took the straws and wrapped them around the bulb and then crinkled up the construction paper roughly and wrapped it around the straws and bulb and then took the rubber bands and secured the paper. I think he spent maybe a minute on it.
I think you maybe know how this ends. The teacher sneered at his design but then proceeded to drop it several times from the top of a ladder and the bulb never broke. He then took my design and dropped it upside down (springs pointing up) and the bulb shattered. I still think about that and laugh 30+ years later.
Reminds me of this entertaining seminar[1] of a bunch of old school IMSA racers describing how they got "creative" racing around the rules to gain an unfair advantage.
[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
This was a lot fun to watch. #1 Ross Chastain had to get more points than #11 Denny Hamlin to qualify. He was in 10th I think when he went full send with the wall, putting an arms length in front of Denny at the very last second to finish #5th.
Short track races are fun because the do have a lot of rubbing, but they dont nearly go as fast as the super-speedways. And just generally you dont see something like this. I understand NASCAR is gonna make a rule to prevent it, but you know they are gonna promote the heck outta this clip.
How did the term "full send" come about? Why is everyone saying it these days?
> Nelk is known for popularizing and later trademarking the slang term "Full Send" (stylized as FULL SEND) which Forgeard defined as meaning "any activity you do, give it your absolute best".
But skateboarders do sometimes say "full commit" or something like that.
First time I heard it I was near the bottom of the UC Santa Cruz trails into Highway 9 contemplating this section called "the poop chute" which gets steeper and rockier until you hit a 2-3 foot drop among boulders and the only solution is to have enough speed that you end up in the road. And by "the road" I mean the apex of a blind hairpin turn of Highway 9.
I had been out of the sport for 20 years but kept riding road and my buddy got me back in with a sweet deal on a YT Jeffsy we kitted up with spare parts from all his friends. Carbon everything. A bike that did not exist in any dimension when I stopped riding.
Well, this was probably my seventh or eighth weekend trying to negotiate this chute and there are these 17-20 year old kids at the top and I ask them how to do this. And this guy, with all the confidence of Santa Cruz and youth says, with a big, easy grin, "Yeah, it's just hang way back and full send." And I looked at him. And I looked at the chute. And back at him. And my brain, married with two kids, was like "I see. Ok." And I did it.
Full send. Was exactly what my brain needed to think. It works weirdly well.
The first and most common explanation, is that when a film crew working with an extreme sports athlete would successfully capture a moment on film, they would mail the tape in to the film editor or marketing department - literally send the tape. So when they were doing lots of takes, before rolling the cameras everyone would encourage each other to "send it this time".
(The term "beta" referring to detailed description of a location or technique, came about similarly, as it refers to passing around a literal Betamax tape of another person performing that stunt or rock climb)
The alternate explanation is that it is simply short for "ascend", as in exhorting a rock climber to "ascend it".
It was one of those things that after hearing it, it just made sense. I probably heard it elsewhere before that, but I just always remember Larry Enticer cementing it. (I'm not sure about the date on that video. I remember seeing it a long time ago.)
"Send it" has been in use in sports for awhile, and the usage is literal: cause the thing to go, and from that point it's between physics and whatever god(s) you pray to. Typically used for the act of passing/shooting.
"Full <thing> mode" has also been in use for awhile, meaning an extreme or complete version of a tactic or state of being.
Combine the two, and you get "full send mode", where you make a move that completely removes your control from that point forward.
Then you drop the last word for brevity, and you have people going full send.
Incredibly fun to watch. I work for the #11 (and others) so this was very disappointing from that angle (particularly since his record at Phoenix is pretty good) but overall it was such a fun move that highlights a good attitude for drivers & teams to have, but is also just plain entertaining.
Perhaps a better idea would be some kind of aerodynamic change which would result in a trapped pressure area on the right side when it is close to the wall. Maybe some kind of concave side.
If it had a real potential to spice the game (like allowing foot hits in volleyball) it would be integrated in the rules with some limitation (for instance you can only do it if you’re way behind)
Not to say it couldn’t happen, just that it’s reasonable to assume the wall is designed to support more force than this.
If it's too effective and everyone start doing it, it loses its charm.
Imagine if in Dota every game only consist of 3 tanks and 2 dps carries because it's too effective, it'll get boring soon.
You can go to the inside, as is traditional, or you can go to the wall and risk it all...
Even with Nextgen cars, it’s a last half-lap move at most.
So it works once, then you're out, and you have to hope you pull it off safely. It was a massive risk, not all courses have a wall that wouldn't have wrecked the car. He mentions that part in the video.
Any little lip in the siding on the wall could have caused him to flip or twirl about or get speared or launched his engine all over the place. The walls are designed to keep people safe, including the fans. They are fantastically well engineered and made. But, if he had caught the wall wrong and was catapulted into the stands, he may have killed a lot of people, let alone the danger to other drivers, let alone to himself. The various safety systems, of which the wall was but one, aren't made for that move and could very easily have been compromised in very bad ways.
I mean, it was awesome to watch, just incredibly cool. I'm glad it worked for him, he's in the history books for that move for sure. I can totally see NASCAR evolving to utilize that move in the future.
But he put many lives at more risk than anyone was expecting in such a kinetic sport.
On the racing line, even with a clean track, they still need grip to turn -- he didn't.
Also to note that as it is the end of the race, they aren't on fresh tires and probably most/all of the field didn't have the full grip they would during other portions of the race.
When you play by the rules, you are limited to your abilities. But if you can squeeze advantages here and there, you can climb some extra spots, maybe to the top.
I know that with the direction the sport has taken in the last decade or so, there are probably a hell lot of hacks right now. I even heard that players would change tactics (ie., rely on certain kicks/strikes more) depending on the hogu brand in use.
But I competed before the advent of e-hogus and the one trick I found is punching just at the upper edge of the chest part of the hogu. That's where the rubber padding ends which transitions to the mere "cotton" padding that fluffs the straps. This meant that my opponent might actually hurt from my punch, while plainly making contact with the protective gear. In an era where punches rarely scored points if at all, this was useful. I felt like I could punish people for clinching too much.
(Needless to say, this was in high school competitions. I dunno if it would've been as useful in higher tiers.)
So did you find anything else? I'm curious! :)
Before the e-hogus a fellow competitor used to punch in a way that was not damage effective, but made a lot of noise and looked like a real punch (almost like a backhand slap), scoring a lot of points. Their opponents claimed that they weren't even hit. Another guy used to launch kicks in the last possible moment of a clinch (almost always a jump-turning-and-back-kick, tuio mondollyo tuit chagi, don't know the name in english), just when he noticed in the corner of the eye the referee intended to break the clinch.
Just one example:
He noticed one ref gave verbal warnings only the first two times someone stepped out of bounds, so he had me bait the opponent into throwing a bunch of kicks as I retreated until I had two verbal warnings. My opponent was rather pissed off before I threw a single kick, upped the aggression and fell right into a counter.
He was good at all the regular tactics too; my only TKO was accomplished by starting out round 2 with exactly what he told me to do.
Re: the hogu thing, I did see someone do a push-kick on the hogu, then drag the foot down, pulling the hogu with it until there was no padding over the collar bone and punch there. He broke two people's collar bones and the ref was oblivious. The second opponent retaliated and it escalated with the match ending -3 to -2 (yes negative for both people). The guy who initiated the dirty stuff won, but had a broken instep (his opponent caught a roundhouse by raising his thigh and dropped an elbow directly onto the instep).
To be clear that wasn't just stupid. It took a lot of work to get into a place where it's worth having a go, and a heaping measure of luck to pull it off.
Drivers aren't supposed to hug walls like that.
Usually when doing turns like this one you need to slow down and assert perfect control on the car.
Essentially, he "became a train on tracks" while everyone was still cars.
The walls also have special protections over them that made it possible, you probably couldn't do that on a regular concrete wall.
Unfortunately the wall also destroys the car so this is a trick that can't be done more than once per race. If they don't agree not to do it again everybody will have to race like that on the last lap of those short tracks, to defend from the drivers behind. The costs for the car and maybe for the track (restoring the walls?) will be substantial. Check the pictures of the right side of the #1 car.
That said, you probably won't roll a Corolla (low center of mass and relatively low grip tires) without hitting something like a curb or a surface change. You are more likely to just uncontrollably drive in to an obstacle.
Still a risky move for a number of reasons, but wrecks are expected and happen all the time in NASCAR races.
> Once I got against the wall I basically go to the wheel and just hope I didn't catch the turn floor access gate or something crazy
This doesn't make sense, and, if you listen to the video, it's also obviously not what he says. The quote should be
> Once I got against the wall I basically let go of the wheel [...]
But it was awesome.
From "$500" 24 Hours of Lemons racers that intentionally start with negative laps to go over $500 to most banned F1 tech (99% of it was stuff that wasn't explicitly against the rules when created: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/10-craziest-technologies-...)
Once the tech is banned sometimes clever cheats show up to keep using it, but that's not what happened here.
F1 and NASCAR are not comparable. In F1 teams get applauded for cheating with tech, which is completely different, and arguably more boring, from NASCAR where excitement mostly comes from danger.
Most of the radio chatter was positive, and the one complainer from the field is a guy who tried and failed with same move last year.
From reverse skew to the Charger Daytona NASCAR is not new to messing with gaps in rules.
The path length is a bit longer, but his speed was so much more that the trade off was worth it.
I’d introduced arcade mode and double-tap-hold to do a burnout (intended to make tight pit-out and 180° turns after wreck easier) to the Playstation version.
Inadvertently, I neglected to reduce forward traction during the burnout, so a burnout was the fastest way to do a standing start (by virtue of getting into the higher power RPM band). Made for interesting standing start races. Burnout made it into our “Hawaii” multiplayer code and NASCAR2 code; I don’t remember if Arcade mode (looser but more catchable cars and much better brakes) did or not.
* pun unintended
> Match and combine offline data sources: always active
> Link different devices: always active
I would have been concerned about the integrity of the wall.
But then he woudld have exposed that the wall was pretty weak.
Stunts? Stuns in order to? Does something stunning in order to?
Driver stuns (everyone) in order to quality.
It makes sense to me.
It was basically a Happy Gilmore hockey golf swing (which outperforms a regular golf swing when it works, but unfortunately is enough less reliable that it's not worth doing).
Edit: I would be shocked if he doesn’t get a hearty thank you from the crew and a bonus from the bosses.
This is a one off thing. NASCAR is 100% gonna rule it out. And getting the car chewed up is pretty routine in NASCAR. I mean, it's not good to do it unnecessarily but this won't really raise eyebrows. The car was still driving and tracking fine afterwards, so it's probably just mangled body work.
I think they’ll be plenty happy to put a new right side on it.