Aca Forum/interview!

[NickR33]

sorry to be negative but they don't want to give you a fair say... they're after ratings and what rates is archival footage of idiots doing burnouts... they'll use any excuse to roll out the 100s of hours of this footage they have... slow news week? run article on hoons

or Ash is probably right... and I'm just grumpy

[SS8_Gohan]

that's the thing other thing... it's not like it's going to be a whole bunch of "undecided" punters out there, it's either, all people who like cars are idiots doing stupid things or "i don't really care" - i don't know what the point of the 60mins forum is?

i'd think it'd be much better to get an indication of exactly what 60mins is planning to do/trying to achieve/format of show etc. I don't watch free-to-air really at all these days, so i'm not sure how 60mins is at the moment, but back in the day it was reputable - certainly not the trash level of aca/tt, things could have changed though.

[Birds]

Things have changed Daniel, I'm not expecting anything but a glossed over version of Today Tonight. You can pay out on Herald Sun etc. but the rest of the newsmedia are heading (we're already there?) in the same direction with sensationalism and blowing things out of proportion just to attract attenton. No one cares for cold hard facts anymore, it's whoever who can supply the most morbid sounding details.

Can you believe we have special task forces allocated to defecting vehicles lol...f**k I couldn't even get a station cop off his ass when I was 18 after some drunk driver hit my car and drove off. $500 damage in a hit and run but no one was injured? Not our problem. Two intake modifications? SWARM SWARM SWARM

[dezz]

I'm with grumpy old Nick, nothing good will come of this.

Send whoever you want to represent enthusiasts/car clubs, the only thing you need to realize is this: 'Us' being shown in a good light does not equate to ratings. The people that watch these shows, and that's all they are, TV shows, not 'news shows', are only interested in hearing how many babies our pod filters have killed.

Period.

[djr81]

I think one of the main problems is bogans and morons doing hektik skidz then proceeding to label THEMSELVES an enthusiast or apart of a club wrecks it for those who genuinely are. As said above a "real" enthusiast wouldn't take their pride and joy out knowingly to an area/road, loiter around when it is known for hooning and law breaking, I mean I'm noone to judge who is or is not a "real/true" enthusiast but I certainly would not put myself and my car in such a situation deliberately.

I also think these people use the clubs and term enthusiast loosely and as a scape goat to justify their actions.

Whoever attends please keep this in mind.

Hoons = idiots ripping skidz etc.

Car enthusiast = people who do stuff properly eg track days etc.

It is NOT the job of car enthusiasts to save anyone from hoons. So please dont advocate more facilities (or anything else) on the basis that it will lessen the instances of fkwittery on the roads.

[MrWindsurf]

Still a bit bitter I got a defect when I went from Winton Raceway to Benalla and filled up some fuel and headed back to the track. Yes the GT wing is defectable and I was in the wrong, but I know the same police defected heaps of cars the previous weekend that Drift Matsuri was on and shown no leniency for people taking it to the track.

So in short, all the guys drifting/tracking drove over 5 hours (round trip) to do the right thing but got petty defects which could be cleared easily. My point is, if we are going to get defected for trying to do the right thing, might as well drive on the street and get done for actually doing the wrong thing.

This point really needs to be pushed also. You try and do the right thing by attending a track day and then get defected on the way home for something stupid.

[R31Nismoid]

It looks like it's a ACA event

Not a 60 Minutes event

Still interested in going along from the point of view of:

"Hey, we are SAU - We organise these events"

"Our limitations are - X (costs & availability of venues etc)"

"We understand the legal, but when Police sit outside events like Calder Drags - and defect people, doesn't do anyone any good"

"We have cruise meets in car parks, yet are sometimes hassled due to perception rather than fact"

So basically sitting with the supporters of more access to facilities, kinda like sitting between the two worlds to so speak.

[Birds]

Whoever attends please keep this in mind.

Hoons = idiots ripping skidz etc.

Car enthusiast = people who do stuff properly eg track days etc.

It is NOT the job of car enthusiasts to save anyone from hoons. So please dont advocate more facilities (or anything else) on the basis that it will lessen the instances of fkwittery on the roads.

Actually, I believe you can seperate yourself from hoons by suggesting solutions to deal with the issue and maintaining your external participation to it.

The problem that car enthusiasts have, is that look and sound like enthuiasts, and claim to be. So it's your word against theirs when you say car enthusiasts an joins are two different things. Instead, I'd be putting across ye olde logic demonstration that all hoons are car enthusiasts, not all car enthusiasts are hoons. The stereotype has more to do with age, race and the type of car.

[djr81]

Actually, I believe you can seperate yourself from hoons by suggesting solutions to deal with the issue and maintaining your external participation to it.

Well I take the view that it is simply too much to take on and, anyway, why the hell should it be up to car enthusiasts to fix? Why cant we be the same as any other bunch of sports people? I mean I dont see them building more soccer fields to stamp out soccer hooliganism. Or boxing rings to stop people down the pub punching on. Other sports dont get burdened with fixing societies ills, why should we?

The problem that car enthusiasts have, is that look and sound like enthuiasts, and claim to be. So it's your word against theirs when you say car enthusiasts an joins are two different things. Instead, I'd be putting across ye olde logic demonstration that all hoons are car enthusiasts, not all car enthusiasts are hoons. The stereotype has more to do with age, race and the type of car.

Its an easy fix. Just say no to HRT jackets.

I would put across the point of view that any muppet who rips hektic single pegger skidz in his Commodore neither understands anything about cars nor is he the sort of person you would want anywhere near you on a race track. From my experience they are completely incapable of effectively competing in any events anyway.

[Hadouken]

When is it on?

[SS8_Gohan]

you're f*cking kidding me, an ACA forum? i'm sorry OP, but you'll be surrounded by a bunch of in-bred half-wits.

Logic, facts, rational objective thinking... these have no place within ACA walls...

[adis]

Gee, they want to find out what are opinions are on how to help our addiction, thats fair enough, but to 1: go to kebab shop and scoop our random people 2: involve victims or people affected by hoons sounds very fishy to me. Hope we dont look bad as usual.

To who ever might represent us, be very careful but nothing to lose as we all are "hoons" in their eyes anyway

[Birds]

Ash and I will be going along to this...it will be tomorrow night. As Adis put it, we plan to be very careful about what we say, but we don't have much to lose by attending. If their spin is to make all import drivers look like idiots, they are going to run this kind of story with or without our involvement, but in the latter instance, probably use "more interesting" characters as representatives of the import community in place of us. Nothing we can do about what ends up on the cutting room floor, but we're hoping that our attendance can at least promote the idea that not all import drivers can be slotted into the category of "hoons". The goal will be to get our POV in as a sub community that tries to do the right thing and still gets villified/punished for it, drawing differences between groups of the import community and offering our "in touch" insight into potential solutions for public issues. Whether critics accept it or not is another thing, but we can only try.

tl;dr: hopefully we'll be no worse off than if we weren't there to make oursleves heard.

[R31Nismoid]

^ as above.

They have a group of people obviously of the kebab shop boys (funny no?)... So there are questions hopefully we can ask them of "why dont you come to the track". Ask other people about why there isnt more driver training/education as that is the key point really - changes of attitude is whats needed and that wont happen by impounding cars

But also being able to ask Police/Council about the lack of places to actually go. Look @ Calder park - you get 2-3 runs per night, costs $80 ($25 for ya mates). So $80 + fuel/food for less than 1min of racing... Its not hard to see why it spills onto the street. That's not to say it is condoned by us - however one can clearly see WHY it is occurring.

And also ask the Police why they sit out the front of events like Easternats - defecting people - after they've just left somewhere and been doing the right thing... Its very counter productive

[Birds]

I'd also like to bring up DECA as a good example of enthusiasts doing the right thing. I did this in the last interview I attended and the journalist was very surprised that people were dedicated enough to travel 2.5 hours to get their fix of petrol fumes. The angle I played was that, some of us dedicated enthusiasts are happy to do that, but can you blame most people for choosing their backstreets over driving 200km to do things the right way? The right way needs to be as easy, if not easier than the wrong way, for people to want to take it on.

How much of a dent in the TAC budget would it be, to setup these facilities closer to home, instead of throwing money at advertising campaigns that fall on deaf ears?

[IOWNU]

Frankly, ACA viewers aren't worthwhile.

I think it is good that you guys are going though, just in case someone other than a complete retard is watching the show. That's assuming your viewpoint is presented objectively. Big assumption.

Edited March 27, 2012 by IOWNU

[SS8_Gohan]

just in case someone other than a complete retard is watching the show...

ACA? i believe 'complete retard' is the high water marker they're trying to reach for their viewing audience...

But i do agree about attending can't do us any harm, being vilified means you have only one way to go but up... but i'm sure the 'prinny' boys will be doing their best to lower their standing amongst the public

I say stick it to the show as well... ask them, why weren't car clubs approached? Why did you go and target people from known hot-spots knowing full well the sort of person you'll be getting? This of course is all blindingly obvious to us, but those watching/their usual audience don't have the IQ to process past the flashy graphics and botox, so i would be trying to get admissions from the ACA. They'll most likely edit it out but just mention it a lot, maybe their response to your questions will have to be put in at some point.

I'd say that we, as in SAU Vic, a legit car club, had to find out about this second hand and ASKED to be a part of the show - if you're doing a forum like this, why was that even the case? And then i would just flat out accuse ACA of their usual mis-deeds (because really, how often would that chance come up! ), "we all know you guys had an angle that you were pursuing, regardless of the nuances of the debate and public discussion around 'hooning', just to further stigmatise car enthusiasts and to play to what is obviously a topic that 'rates' well. You obviously had no interest in progressing the public discussion past "they're all idiots", ".

[Birds]

In ACA's defence, and I want to slit my wrists for saying that, they went to the hotspots for the source of the problem that they're doing a story on, which is a logical research method. I don't think they actually care about car enthusiasts or our own problems for that matter, they care about hearing from the hoons and the people that hoons affect...us getting painted with the same brush is just a byproduct of it all, that they don't really care about. So it's only through our own initiative (well mostly OPs) that we're even taking part in this discussion. Hard to explain it, but if we're adamant about seperating ourselves from hoons we can't expect ACA to want to talk to us about them in the same sentence...we might be able to see our relevance to the situation because we share the same cars, but they can't. Still, they said they were happy to have us on board so we'll see what the olive branch is connected to.

[SS8_Gohan]

i see your point but what exactly is the POINT of this forum? Do they just want peoples families to have a vent at the retards, retards to act like retards, and walk away with some good ratings? What exactly are they trying to accomplish? The context is key. It just seems like a glorified "let's take them to the principles office and give them a dressing down" scenario, what's that going to achieve.

This is how SAU will turn out

[Birds]

i see your point but what exactly is the POINT of this forum? Do they just want peoples families to have a vent at the retards, retards to act like retards, and walk away with some good ratings? What exactly are they trying to accomplish? The context is key. It just seems like a glorified "let's take them to the principles office and give them a dressing down" scenario, what's that going to achieve.

This is how SAU will turn out

lol well I don't think you're far off the mark, and I expect nothing less than what you've just described. We don't know the exact point they're going for, so we'll just have to wait and see. Either way, we'll be trying to remove ourselves far from the likes of the people they want to villify, so it'll do them no good trying to draw us into a flame war or pointing the finger at us. We may also have a surprise in store for them all

As has been the consensus, I can't see this achieving anything good for us...that's clearly not what they want to do. But for us, it's about damage control, trying to reduce the amount of bad it can do for us.