So, the other day I found myself with some time on my hands, you know how it is. Fired up the old PC and decided to boot up an old favorite, one of those classic NASCAR games. Can’t even remember which one exactly, maybe NR2003? Anyway, I picked the number 3 car, the black Goodwrench Chevrolet. Yeah, Dale Earnhardt Sr.
And I dunno, maybe I was feeling a bit mischievous. Instead of trying to run clean laps, I thought, let’s try being ‘The Intimidator’ for a bit. See what it’s like. My whole goal shifted from winning the race to… well, messing with the AI drivers.
Getting Started: Bump Drafting Gone Wild
First, I just started bump drafting super aggressively. Like, really slamming into the back of the car ahead on the straights at Daytona. Sometimes it worked, gave us both a boost. Other times? Chaos. Sent the poor AI spinning, collected a few others. Honestly, it was kinda hilarious at first. Just pure, dumb fun.
Then I got more deliberate.
- I’d try the classic ‘turn ’em’ move coming off the corner. Get alongside, just a little tap on the rear quarter panel.
- Sometimes I’d just flat-out ram into the side of someone in the middle of the pack.
- Tried to recreate some of those famous three-wide moments, but instead of holding my line, I’d just push outwards.
Spent a good couple of hours just causing mayhem. Restarted races over and over. Didn’t care about finishing. My whole objective became seeing how big of a wreck I could cause, specifically using Earnhardt’s car. It felt like a weird sort of practice, learning how the physics reacted, how little input it took to send another car flying.
Thinking Back…
It sounds dumb, I know. Just wrecking computer cars. But it got me thinking. It reminded me of learning to drive stick shift years ago. My old man was teaching me in his beat-up truck. I was terrible. Jerky starts, grinding gears, the works. One afternoon, we were practicing parallel parking, which was my absolute nightmare. I was inching back, looking in the mirror, and almost tapped the bumper of the car behind us. Not hard, but close.
My dad, cool as a cucumber, just says, “Whoa there, Intimidator. Save that for Talladega.” He wasn’t mad, just that dry wit he had. But it stuck with me. Driving, even aggressively, needs control. Earnhardt wasn’t just smashing into people randomly; there was usually a purpose, a strategy, even in his most aggressive moves. It was calculated risk, mostly.
This whole gaming session kinda felt like that driving lesson again. Fun to push the limits when there are no real consequences, like in the game. But it also highlights how much skill and, frankly, how much danger is involved in real racing when folks drive like that. And how easily things go wrong if you don’t have that underlying control.
Made me think about some folks I’ve worked with too. Like this one guy, always pushing, always aggressive in meetings, cutting people off. Thought he was being assertive, being a ‘go-getter’. But he lacked finesse, control. Ended up just alienating everyone, causing more problems than he solved. Didn’t last long. Being an ‘Intimidator’ without the skill and calculation to back it up? Doesn’t work out so well in the real world, whether it’s on the track, on the road, or in the office.
So yeah, that was my little experiment. Fun way to blow off steam in a game, but definitely gave me a bit more appreciation for the real deal, and maybe a little perspective on aggression versus controlled assertiveness. Weird what you learn from just messing around, huh?
