[Russell Sobie]

I see in pretty much every race drivers dive exceptionally deep in a desperate move to overtake the driver in front of them. Something that here would be translated as divebombing.

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-Divebombing. Another one of those popular terms, that only very few understand. When one driver overtakes another driver by braking exceptionally late, and there's a little contact when he makes the move stick, the average player here screams and shouts that he divebombed him, illegal blabla.

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Check this video from 0:38 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSS-guKXQJY
You see Ricciardo in a Red Bull chasing Vettel in his Ferrari. You see Ricciardo break very (too) deep. Vettel moves in and there's contact. Who's to blame?
It may be a surprise to you that Vettel was penalized after the race, for moving under braking. However, here most people would call Ricciardo's move a divebomb

I'll define divebomb and you tell me if you think I'm right or not:

Divebomb: The act of attempting to go inside on a turn where 1) you are not yet along side the opponent on the outside before they begin turning in, AND 2) you do not brake soon enough to actually make the turn and still keep at least 2 wheels between the lines both on entry and exit.

I don't know how anyone would think that Ricciardo's inside bid would be a divebomb since 1) he was able to stay along side well into the braking zone before turn in and 2) was able to actually make the turn. It certainly looks like the Ferrari comes into his space during the braking zone to try to further squeeze him, causing the contact, so I'm actually NOT surprised if he was penalized.

You weren't able to find a better example of what you might people mistake for divebombing? Possibly because those guys are the elite of open wheel racing? Something you'll likely not find here on SRS?

Which goes to my point: we aren't professional drivers. We should be avoiding contact at pretty much all costs because if contact occurs the combination of our comparative lack of skill to pro drivers, Internet latency, and the wonky way Assetto Corsa deals with collisions will make the tiniest of contacts turn into wild spins and such on occasion.

-Showing up in a race with 0 experience - isn't this why SRS has different classes?! How often does it really happen? And obviously that NEVER happens in real races, so why on earth do you think I'd confuse incident free with clean? Obviously I do not.

SRS doesn't have different classes. There's a Driver Rating, and in past seasons there might be a few series that require you to have a minimum driver rating, but NONE of them have that currently. "0 experience" and "never driven the track before and/or the car being driven" are a bit different. The former might happen once a month at most... people literally playing multiplayer Assetto Corsa for the first time after finding out about SRS. The latter... people who have quite a bit of experience racing competitively yet have not actually practiced with a car/track combo? That probably happens daily!

I've done it myself with some of the easier to drive cars on a track I'm familiar with. Drop in, try to figure out braking zones and gears for turns during practice and qualifying, probably qualify midpack, then fight your way to the front during the race. Trick is, I don't do anything stupid in this situation. Likely my lap times will improve during the race but I'll go easy trying to overtake people if I'm not confident doing so.

But not everyone sees it that way... I see a lot of folks do this and since they know they are faster than the guy in front of them they try to aggressively shove their way past. And cause incidents.

People also seem to be under the impression that any form of contact is forbidden in racing. It actually isn't. Knocking/pushing someone off track is. Contact however isn't.

I'd agree with that. However, the rules are pretty specific in that "abusive" contact IS forbidden. That's the stuff that should be reported. This includes actual divebombing, btw. I hope that doesn't trigger you.

Also bear in mind, that many people here drive with a huge difference in quality of hardware. Someone who drives around with loadcell brakes can brake a lot more accurate - and therefore often later -than someone who plays with standardish paddles. The difference in quality is huge, compared to 'real racing'. That makes it much more difficult to estimate the braking point of the car you're chasing. especially in hard braking zones. These are all things to keep in mind, before you start calling other drivers jackasses, only because you don't fully understand what actually happened or why.

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Also, the driver who's being knocked off track by someone who made a move by exceptional deep braking, should always ask themselves what they did to contribute to the incident.

Just because your hardware lets you brake later, doesn't mean you get to drive into someone who has already begun turning into a corner, whether they break sooner than you or not. If you want that inside, you have to get there before they turn in. If you are there before they start turning in, its their fault if they turn into your space. But if you aren't there yet, that's a divebomb. And if the only way you make that turn is by bouncing off the outside car... also a divebomb.

I've reported that type of thing a number of times here on SRS, and unsurprisingly the driver in question gets warned/suspended/banned for the incident. And in my eyes, anything that gets a successful warning/suspension/ban out of administration is by definition something that should be reported.

If you simply flat out disagree with his judgement on reported incidents, well... that's an issue you'll have to take up with administration. Not those doing the reporting.