Minthara's happy trail

if a simracing competition has a proof of residence requirement to enter it's a safe bet to blame me for it lmao.

the detailed explanation is that in 2020 for Simgrid's More Female Racers i was paired with Andie the Lab (https://www.youtube.com/@AndietheLab/) who was just beginning simracing and was, at best, unfamiliar with racing. and we actually did alright! she learned pretty quick despite my really flawed coaching at the time.
a few months after that she DMed me the PR release about SRO America Esports opening up pre-qualifications for its 2020 edition; back then there weren't any requirements besides having a stable ping on the race servers.
so i gave it a shot and... i demolished the competition. 5 rounds, which ended like so: P1; P1; P1; P3; P1. i took the title on round 4. i was the only non American racing. (i took nudes posing with the trophy btw)

they never told me directly, but i heard through the grapevine that the SRO was pissed at me for this. for the 2021 championship they mandated that participating drivers must have a stable ping, and it must be equal or less than 150ms. well mine was 145ms, so they couldn't exclude me; although this time the guy serving as liaison between the SRO and the organizers did come to tell me they would really rather that i pull out of the competition. (i didn't. the regs said i could race. so. lmao)

starting 2022, excluding drivers nominated by manufacturers, all participants had to provide proof of residence in the region of their choice. (SRO is divided between Asia/Oceania, America and Europe) starting 2023, all participants have to provide proof of residence.
to my knowledge every simracing esports competition divided in regions (not just SRO) now requires proof of residence. and it's my fault lol

found a magazine interview from 2009 of Jean Alesi in which he says that women should have their racing license revoked because motorsport isn't a sport for them.
like wow i always suspected i was either seen as a useful dude in a dress or as a diversity hire by the management of his stupid little esports team but damn this really confirms it (yes people can change yadda yadda. i don't believe for one second people like him actually change)

it consists of driving on rough surfaces (with high FFB to be able to hold the car) to saturate the suspensions which apparently makes the car go faster.
you know where that leads with those fancy directdrive wheels everybody at the top uses? arm pump syndrome. so not only is esports gamemaxing once again making a mockery of racing, the teams are also putting their drivers' health in danger - because that hour of driving on broadcast was at best 5% of their driving time for this round.

esports teams who have a reputation for sketchy contracts hiring minors as young as 10-11yo give me all the icks in the world (to say nothing of the parents agreeing to such contracts)