I was recently pondering how many of the sports I've played throughout my life are judged subjectively, and how style plays a huge role in them. For instance, in mountain biking, I'd rather be known as a steezy rider (for lack of a better term) than the fastest rider in the group. The style of being able to whip a tabletop excites me more than the grind of achieving a Strava KOM.

When it comes to wheel-to-wheel racing, though, style is never a consideration beyond those who care whether the car looks cool. You rarely hear of an amateur driver having style. You might hear them described as aggressive or smooth, but not in an aesthetic sense. This likely refers to how they handle their driving inputs, and the timer doesn't care how the lap looks from the outside.

In BMX racing, you can be the fastest rider and have a signature style, be it in the way you jump, manual, or manipulate your body and bike while sprinting. You can almost recognize someone from a distance just by how they move.

If I had to describe my driving style, it would be smooth, steady, and measured. I drive intending to stay clean, not crash my car, and not ruin anybody's race. I rarely slide the car around, and I'd rather take two corners setting up a pass than try to brute-force it in one.

But is that my aesthetic driving style? Or is that risk management? Is there even such a thing as aesthetic style in club racing?

a blurry photo of a car driving down a track
Photo by Thomas De Giorgio

When I think of drivers that have a distinctive style, my mind immediately goes to drifting, which makes sense since it is subjectively judged. A driver like Chelsea DeNofa has an undeniable signature style even amongst his professional drifting peers. Angle, aggression, and proximity all have a flavor. Drifting is expressive by design.

Wheel-to-wheel racing isn't built like that. There's no one standing at the pit-in giving you points for how committed your entry looked. There's no bonus for how tidy you managed the slip angle. Most of the time, if something looks dramatic, it's because something went wrong.

And yet, after a few seasons in the same paddock, you start to recognize patterns in your fellow racers.

You know who brakes fifty feet deeper than everyone else. You know who is patient. You know who will race you hard, but give you just enough room. And you know who tends to jump out of your mirror a little too optimistically.

We don't usually call that style; we call it racecraft or reputation. Still, maybe there isn't much difference.

In club racing, maybe style isn't about how it looks from the outside. Maybe it's about how you operate when you're right on the edge. Whether you force the issue, or decide "it's not worth it." Whether other drivers trust you to be predictable.

The lap timer doesn't measure any of that. The results sheet doesn't either. But everyone in your run group knows.

Aggressive or smooth. Fast or slow. We don't use many words to describe each other. We default to lap times and finishing positions because they're easy to measure. But spend enough time in the same run group and you realize that pace isn't the only thing people notice.

If someone in your paddock had to describe how you race, what would they say?

Not your lap time.

How you present in their mirrors. How you behave when the door is left half-open. How much room you leave when it counts.

Maybe that's where style actually lives.