Doug Hayashi's Views on the Pyramid of Speed as taken from the NSXFILES website:

Wayne's comments about autocrossers are:
"Do those autocross guys ever go over 60 mph?"

My comments are the following, illustrated graphically via The Pyramid of Speed. I just copyrighted that term, along with the Go-Fast Crack Pipe, so if any of you
semi-non-creative types out there rip off my sayings and claim them for your own, I will sick the Zen Five Lawyers on you, like we did for that other group that believes in
multiple track events. (Note: Actually, I think BP was the originator of the "Go-Fast Crack Pipe", but I copyrighted it before he did). PMUM gets the copyright for "Cone
Dodger". I may have talked about the "levels" of The Pyramid of Speed on this website somewhere in another story, but I can't find it right now through the 200 megabytes of files
on this website , so I will repeat it. So here goes my theory:

The Bottom Level of the Pyramid of Speed

Street Racers:
These are the yahoos that you see trying to do smoky burnouts on city streets. They look around for deserted industrial areas so they can "Race" each other in a straight line. They
think NOS is cool. They think "Fast and Furious" is a shoe-in for an Oscar, both for best picture, best actor, and best documentary. They post on various Internet BBS boards short
stories talking about their "Kills", where they went 0-60 faster than some other car on busy city streets.

Favorite type of woman: Any sixteen year old female who hangs out at those Import car shows and will show some skin, never mind that her skin is pimply.

Favorite Magazine: Import Tuner. Sport Compact Car. Turbo Digest. NOS World.

Level 2 of the Pyramid of Speed

Freeway Racers:
Next to the bottom are these guys. They frown upon Street Racers, thinking that Street Racers are 0-80 mph wimps. Instead, Freeway Racers think that they are cool, as they go 120+
mph and weave in and out of traffic on the highway like a bunch of morons on crystal meth. The problem is that these boneheads have spent money to make their car a little faster and a
little noisier than usual, but they forgot one thing: they are going at dangerously high speeds and they have itty bitty front brakes, small rear drum brakes, and they have never attended a
go-fast driving school. They forgot the Stop-Fast parts when they modified their cars. Not good when Sally Homemaker in her 6000 lbs SUV makes a lane change at 55 mph without
signaling and without looking for cars coming up on her at triple digit speeds. They post on various BBS boards about their "Kills", where they passed some guy driving a more
expensive car at 110 mph, saying that they knew that "Name_your_Car" drivers can't drive worth a crap.

Favorite type of woman: Any female that is impressed by them driving 100 mph with a beer in their hand, a joint in the other, and no seat belt on. Needless to say, these guys are
usually dateless.

Favorite magazine: High Times. Mad Magazine.

Level 3 of the Pyramid of Speed

1/4 Mile Drag Racers
Next up are the 1/4 mile drag racers. These guys are at least smart enough to take their cars to a formal race track where there are rules, safety regulations, and ambulances for when
they crash because they can't figure out how to drive in a straight line. They look down upon the Freeway "Racers" and Street "Racers" as a bunch of immature folks who don't have
enough sense to take their need for speed to their local 1/4 mile drag strip. Instead, these 1/4 mile geeks spend their life trying to break the 12 second barrier in their souped up street
cars. Sometimes they might even get four runs in a day, and at 13 seconds a run, this means they spent the whole day at the track for 52 seconds of "racing" fun. Kinda like spending
$200 on a dinner date, and having premature ejaculation at the dinner table.

Favorite type of woman: Any female that has teeth.

Favorite magazine: Hot Rod, Car Craft, Hemi World.

Level 4 of the Pyramid of Speed

Autocrossers
Next, we have the autocrossers, a special breed among themselves. They frown on the illegal freeway and street racers as wreckless morons. They laugh at the 1/4 mile Drag Racers, as
those goons can only go fast in a straight line. Hell, you can probably get a monkey or an 90 year old grandmother than can stomp on the gas and make three shifts in 12 seconds
without crashing. Reaction speed of drag racers on the start? Shit....reaction speed to autocrossers is learning a 15 turn autocross course the first time by driving out there and not
hitting any freaking cones, and making some dramatic left-right-left turns without spinning out (despite the fact that they are going at a blazing 35 mph!)

Favorite type of woman: A female who has the whole day to burn, and can stand a safety cone upright, as they sucker them into being cone-corner workers.

Favorite magazine: The SCCA's SportsCar magazine and the SCCA FastTrack, so they can obey the Rule Nazi's and read and interpret drivel such as this. These guys actually like
reading a book of rules about how to go around cones at 35 mph!

Level 5 of the Pyramid of Speed

Time Trialers
Next, we have the Time Trialers, meaning the people that who take their car to road racing courses. Also known as "lapping days". These people are thrown on a road racing track with
about 20 other cars, and they are only allowed to pass in the straightaways. They look down upon the illegal Street "Racers" and Freeway "Racers" for obvious reasons. They laugh at
the drag racers who can only go in the straight line. They shake their head at the autocrossers, as why would someone want to spend all day in a parking lot to do five runs on a 15 turn
course lined with safety cones, and each run only lasts 60 seconds and you never get out of 2nd gear? Hell, at at Time Trial event or lapping day, you may get 60+ laps around a world
famous road course, which is 30 times more "seat time" than you get in autocrossing! Plus, in autocrossing, they may disallow your time because your tire is a quarter inch too wide, or
you put a different brake pad on, or your springs on your car are a half inch too low. Autocross is racing, but racing Taliban-style, with 1000's of rules of what you can do or not do.

Favorite type of woman: Females who think that their man is a "Racer", since his car actually made it to the pavement of a race track. Never mind that the dude spun his car four times
in one day and got dust all over the interior of the car. She is convinced that she dates "Macho Racer".

Favorite Magazine: Road and Track, Car and Driver, Automobile, Motor Trend.

The Top Level of the Pyramid of Speed

Wheel-to-Wheel Racers
The Wheel-to-Wheel racers are at the top of the pyramid. They have big heads, big egos, they think they are cool, and they can be tremendously condescending. Some even have the
gall to have their own website touting their latest "racing adventures". They think Street Racers are ricockulous, and that the Fast and The Furious is the second stupidest movie they
ever seen, with Driven being the stupidest. Freeway racers are viewed as unskilled morons, but Wheel-to-Wheel racers have been known to occasionally "bait" the Freeway Racers into
following them through an offramp at triple digits speeds, and when the Freeway Racer suddenly realizes that he can't control his car that fast in a turn, the Freeway Racer panics, hits
the breaks hard while turning, and ends up spinning and crashing into the guard rail, while the Wheel-to-Wheel racer looks in his rear view mirror, and calmly puts another mark on his
dashboard, keeping score of "reverse-kills". 1/4 Mile Drag racers are viewed as unskilled folks who can only shift up, and cannot figure out how to master a proper heel-and-toe
downshift without grinding the tranny.
Autocrossers are viewed as crossdressers who think that danger and excitement is narrowly missing a plastic safety cone by two inches at 35 mph, and live by a rule book about their car
specs that is bigger than the Bible. There is a lot of risk and danger in autocrossing.....hell, if you screw up, you could end up with a couple of plastic safety cones tangled up in your
front grill. Does Michael Schumacher autocross? Would he ever spend time dodging safety cones? Did Kimi Raikonen make it to Formula One as a nineteen year old by driving solo
in a parking lot? Hell no, Kimi made the leap to Formula One because he was the karting champ of Finland, doing wheel-to-wheel shifter karts, not by driving around stationary cones.
If autocross was really exciting, you would see the Cone Dodger's National Championships on ESPN or Speedvision. But no use having an autocross on TV because, uh...quite
frankly, no one cares.....
Time trialers are viewed as chumps that can't figure out how to control their car well enough to maneuver in between two other cars at 100 mph in a turn without causing a three car
wreck. For it is only the Wheel-To-Wheel racer that put their car within inches of an apex at 110 mph, can brake within inches of their target braking point at 140 mph at the last
possible instant without locking up the brakes into ABS or flat spotting tires, that can be within inches of another car's door going into a 100+ mph turn and fighting for position on the
pavement, and can control understeer or oversteer with the pedal to the metal coming out of an apex and using the last inch of pavement exiting out of a turn to keep the car from
spinning off into the dirt or into surrounding cement walls. If a wheel-to-wheel racer makes a mistake, his car will probably be severely wrecked, other cars could be wrecked, and he
could potentially take out half the cars entered in the event with him going into Turn 1 at the start of a race.

Favorite type of women: Hot, sexy women who know that all the other "racers" in the lower levels of the Pyramid of Speed are all really just "wanna-be-wheel-to-wheel racers". A
woman with a good stock portfolio is highly desirable, because Wheel-to-Wheel racing is ahhh.....about five times more expensive than any other level on the Pyramid, as your car will
break down more, the parts you need to go fast are more expensive, you blow through rear tires every weekend, you probably have to have a truck and trailer to tow the car, you need an
extensive pit crew help to keep the car running that that you over modified in your thermonuclear war with other people to get to the top of the podium.

Favorite Magazine: Autoweek, as each week they have in depth coverage of the only true sport left in the world, which is Formula One wheel-to-wheel racing. Everything else in life is
just a game......

So the question remains: Where do you fit on the Pyramid of Speed? For all you people who are already hooked on "Go-Fast Crack Pipe", just bite the bullet, throw a roll cage in your
car, learn how to control your car a little better, and let's battle it out on the top level of the Pyramid, and let's look down upon all the other "pseudo-racers" from our perch in the
Pyramid.....