Gentlemen's and Ladies agreements are, in fact, the only ones that really
matter. The real difficulty in avoiding really ugly things (like suicide
bombings, or the absurd rhetoric around Israel's withdrawal from Gaza (see
guys, the rockets are working--we need to keep this up)) is that no rational
agreement between like minds is feasible. How does one disengage without
honor between all parties. Rules won't make idiots behave. Not for long
anyway.
In the much simpler world of vintage racing, we can just all get together
and agree that we're not all going to charge four abreast into the chicane.
Even goofballs like me will agree to that and honor it. When someone
doesn't, we don't play with them. We pretty much do that with one guy
locally now--I won't push to pass him, it's not worth it.
The very best example is the guys that race 160 Hondas around Portland.
Initially they raced in the 250 class of several different sanctioning
bodies. The deal was you didn't hop up your motor or do anything other than
cosmetic stuff (and replace the single leading shoe front brake system with
a backing plate from a Honda 350, which is the same size but has double
leading shoes). If you cheated, you wound up with no one to race with, on a
slow bike in a fast class. If you stuck with the rules you had fifteen guys
to race with, elbow to elbow. They have absurd amounts of fun at speeds
approaching 80 MPH at the end of a long, long straight.
FOT is another example--a complex set of unspoken and unwritten rules, and a
code of honor that we all understand, but no one enforces and everyone
obeys. Like nothing too commercial unless it's in all of our interests. Too
bad we can't apply that to the bigger world.
So, I get a little philosophical after a couple of glasses on nice Bordeaux
and a good Cuban montecristo #2 in the perfect bar in Paris. Who wouldn't.
Bill Babcock
Babcock & Jenkins
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