I think it's safe to say that it has been a period of adjustment since Tribeageddon. Not only have the refugees had some trouble finding their feet, but the rest of us have occasionally gotten annoyed by the barrage of posts that aren't typical material around here: what's your favorite car/here's my favorite car, the polls and the posts complaining about the polls, and so on. It does get to be a bit much. And it's clear that the Drivetribe crew were far, far younger than I think a lot of us realized.
And it occurred to me this morning that that age difference explains most of the disconnect. We're the same; we're just at different points on the gearhead timeline.
When I was a kid, I thought about cars all the time. My dad had subscriptions to Road & Track and AutoWeek and I devoured them. I read every road test, memorized every performance stat, gazed longingly at every photograph. And then I talked for hours on end with a few friends who were as car-crazy as I was, debating which was better: the Mustang GT or the Camaro IROC-Z, whether we'd go for a Ferrari or a Lamborghini if we ever got rich, making grand plans for what we'd do to modify certain cars if we ever got them. We drew pictures of cars and car logos all over every notebook cover. Our other friends, our families, a complete stranger at the grocery store just trying to load a bag of cat litter into the back of her Renault 18i Sportwagen, got really sick and tired of us endlessly blathering about cars. Sound familiar?
The difference is that we didn't have the technology available to endlessly blather at strangers about cars from thousands of miles away. We had to keep our blathering local. And our fresh supply of automotive news and reviews came in the mailbox, a month at a time, so we weren't constantly flooded by new information that we simply had to share immediately.
Now I see that Drivetribe was Road & Track for the young'uns here. Not only that, it was also the seat on the school bus where you showed your friends the review of the latest BMW sports sedan, and the notebook cover where you doodled pictures of cars, and even better, it wasn't you and two other weird kids talking about this stuff at lunch; it was thousands of car-loving people, all over, who not only listened to you blather, but who blathered back. Honestly, if such a thing had existed when I was 15, I would have gotten even worse grades than I did. I'd have been on it constantly.
But there's something you need to know about that car-craziness: it mellows out. It doesn't go away; I think most of our spouses and friends would say that we still talk about cars too much, but it changes focus. Once you start driving, and get a car of your own, you start focusing all your mental energy on that car, not just cars in general. You don't have time to debate which manufacturer's shade of green is best, because you need to have your dad show you how to do a tune-up, or you're making plans for a road trip to the beach, or tring to figure out why the damn thing won't just start already.
After that, when you have a couple dozen years of driving under your belt, and have owned a fair few cars, you just stop keeping up with the latest and greatest, unless you're actively searching for a new car and need to research it. And all those supercars you used to daydream about might as well be on the moon for all the good they'll do you.
And instead of blathering about new cars you'll never own, you blather about old cars you used to own. And start posting lots of photos of your dog.
So don't be offended if no one cares about which Porsche you like better, or answers your poll of which shade of orange is better. It's just that we've been there and done that already. But stick around; it's going to be interesting to watch you all be able to officially join the party.