2025 Formula 1 Year in Review
On tears, peers, and analysis of years
All right, I was struggling with motivation here because I’ve had a really busy week and a half. My mom has been trying to enlist my support in escaping the nursing home every time I visit her. I keep telling her that they are not going to allow her discharge home until I can have somebody construct a ramp at her house and that that will take months. However, as I’ve mentioned before, she absolutely hates her new roommate who replaced her previous roommate who died. I get it because I don’t like her either. As I’ve also mentioned, she controls the room’s only television and turns it up really loud. She doesn’t want to interact with either of us at all, she’s yelled at me for reading to Mom too loudly, several times when I’ve visited she’s told me that I’m “dismissed”, and she even gets angry whenever I turn a light on her side of the room by mistake when it’s too dark for my mom to see. My mom’s been calling her a Nazi and saying she should be “shot in the head” and I’ve grown really weary. And after all the racist and otherwise grotesque shit I’ve heard my mom say, it is hard for me to listen to her rant about other people’s obnoxious behavior (even if I agree it is obnoxious) when the stuff she is saying is even worse. It was Adult Protective Services who forced her into the nursing home for hoarding and while I cleaned up the hoard, she’s taking out her rage at what she justifiably considers imprisonment at people who had nothing to do with it. I frequently take her to concerts or art therapy on Wednesdays, and she’s been screaming at the art guy multiple times about how HE is keeping her imprisoned against her will, when he clearly has nothing to do with it. He’s not the social worker, the head nurse, or the Adult Protective Services woman. But she had admittedly had a history of screaming at various telemarketers and people like that even though these were powerless working class people who were clearly given directives from the “big bads” on high who no person is going to have access to. I realize boomers grew up with a toxic ideology of “the customer is always right”, but I hope we’re starting to move past that now because it justifies the abuse of powerless people by other powerless people, and I can’t deal with that. I DO want her home and I DO want to keep visiting her, even though lots of people would tell me neither of those things were necessarily in my best interest, especially because I’m choosing not to seek out full-time jobs right now because she needs me, and even though my mom’s increasing paranoia about my safety kept me from interacting in the real world as much as I want to now. I do feel like she is being kept there against her will and I’m not thrilled to be losing $15,000 of the equity from our house every month because of it, but it has been rough dealing with that, and that’s probably part of why I’ve been falling behind on a lot of obligations.
I am trying to connect with people locally, but every attempt seems to be a failure except I suppose the bar trivia (which I skipped last Wednesday both because I was drained after a difficult day in the nursing home and also because I was behind on work). I went to the autism youth group (The “A-Team”) a week ago Friday seeking any kind of companionship or support, even though I am no longer young. What I really wanted was a support group, but as I expected, it was ultimately just a social/play group and it wasn’t what I was looking for. That day was the A-Team’s Christmas party and we were all asked to bring a gift of $5-$20 for a gift exchange. I brought the only other copy of my book that I had to the party besides the one I kept for myself, but even though that was in my opinion the most valuable thing anyone brought, the recipient seemed to want to get rid of it for the rest of the party. Nobody talked to me at all except the host, it was way too loud (there was a karaoke session and I could almost never hear the person singing), these people were generally more extraverted than I was when I guess I had assumed that most autistic people were introverts (but I suppose the kind of people who would go to a meetup would be less likely to be), and since it was in another suburb and there are no buses in the Syracuse suburbs in the late evenings and I don’t have a smartphone, I had to walk 4.5 miles home in the cold and had massive diarrhea the next day (as I did last Saturday as well).
It helped me lose fat for sure, although probably at too fast a rate. Since I started with a 37.2” waist at the navel two weeks ago and am targeting a 33.3” waist now, I have already lost 7 pounds and 1.2”, which is much too fast. Not only have I been walking more, but I haven’t really properly found a new staple to replace pizza as my main meal when I continue to gag almost anything healthy. I still get a lot of pizzas, but lately, I’ve switched from large to small ones until I’m no longer a size Large. But I admit I am probably losing too much too fast and I need to stop myself before I accidentally turn anorexic. Because almost all my fat is visceral and very little is subcutaneous, just caloric restriction and walking is pretty much just targeting that and I’m not really losing any muscle tone I guess in part because I had so little to begin with, but I need to come up with some other protein source for my ARFID brain that I will tolerate besides Soylent and chicken nuggets, and that may be hard…
Right after I left the A-Team meeting, I started looking for support groups in the Syracuse area because there are so many things I need help with and I want to see if connecting to some people can help my mom get what she needs also. I’m not really JUST looking for real life hangouts although that would be nice; there are plenty of places I can talk with other autists online in the various auto racing, typing, and (if I ever do that again) Scrabble communities if I want. What I’m looking for is some kind of bosom friend locally; somebody who’s got my back and is with me thick or thin and I’d definitely reciprocate. I want a ‘90s sitcom friendship basically, while rationally knowing that those sort of friendships were probably unrealistic even in the ‘90s. Anyway, I found that there is a group in Syracuse called Unique Peerspectives where people can volunteer as peers to help each other. I want this badly. I want to help autistic adults, particularly those who like me have straddled the lines between being well-connected online but with almost no connections in real life, and not employable/socially skilled enough for a traditional full-time professional job but not unemployable enough to be eligible for disability. As I’ve ranted before, it really bothers me that there are more services for the parents of autistic children than for autistic adults, and I want to be the change I want to see happen, and this could be just the way. They do have a Neurodivergent Support Group and since it only meets during business hours, it will always be accessible by bus, so this seems better for me in every regard. I’m pumped, but they’re not going to decide whether to admit me until January. That’s fine. Hopefully, I’ll have the top 200 list done by then, but I’m kind of doubting it.
A lot of Redditor types who would probably tell me to disown my mom for being a chud (even though she was always vehemently anti-Trump and stuff) do not seem to understand family bonds, and this is why I don’t consider myself a social liberal anymore (although I don’t really consider myself a social conservative either). My mom helped a ton of people in her life while getting little in return, and over the last decade or two as she’s grown more isolated, that bitterness has bubbled up. That doesn’t make it okay, but I remember what she was like in the past and I still love her. She dreamt of being a nurse to save lives, but ended up dropping out of nursing school. After she wound up with multiple sclerosis in the ‘70s (and wasn’t even diagnosed until the ‘90s), the MS triggered a major case of epilepsy in her. That eventually healed, but while she was having seizures, she started the Epilepsy Association of Central New York and ran it for two years until she was too sick to continue, especially after my parents divorced (and my dad helped her with that). My mom spoke out on numerous occasions for disabled people’s rights in the ‘90s. She helped me edit my book, she drove me to work and even to Scrabble tournaments since I never learned how to drive (which mortifies me now). We had lots of great conversations over the years and at times, we were the only people each other had. I’m now bitter that it feels like she was trying to keep me from leaving the house and seeing other people and a combination of my laziness, my obsessive work on my various projects, and me not wanting her to leave me alone had me wind up in a more unemployable place than I ever should have been. But she’s done a lot for me and for others and I don’t want her to be completely judged by her worst moments. It seems like everyone online is now primarily judged by the worst things they did in life (especially where any instance of bigotry erases any previous good you did in life), and it is making everyone absolutely miserable. Obviously, almost any person is going to be a mixed bag with good and bad elements. My mom did inspire a desire for service in me, and I want to eventually play a role in autism advocacy like what she did for epilepsy. My dream job honestly would be something to help autistic adults, not a racing industry job (although I’d certainly gladly take a racing industry job if anyone is offering!) I don’t know how I could get into that without spending money on another social work degree (and I never want to go back to college) or knowing how to drive (which would be necessary to be a Direct Support Professional or something).
I’ve also been lurking around Substack quite a bit and looking at its other features that I had previously ignored. I discovered that Substack had a chat function and I launched a chat last week. I am not requiring people to be a paid subscriber to access this. If there’s a way I can manage it, I’ll even set it up so non-subscribers can talk here.
Additionally, I subscribed to a bunch of other Substackers, both political and racing and general sports people. I was honestly surprised how few auto racing people were on here, so it would not be difficult for me to be king of my niche, especially if I cross-promote it back and forth with my YouTube as I intend to do.
Speaking of that, I was flirting with rejoining the typing community in recent weeks in the YouTube videos I just released, but I’ve decided that’s a waste of my time and it’s probably hurting my legacy as well. I do want to get monetized on YouTube again after I lost it a year or two ago (which along with a flat stomach, paying my bills, and bringing my mom home are my main goals for 2026) but I’m not going to get there with only one home video/typing live stream that gets 200 views a week. It’s clear people are losing interest in me as a typist compared to my heyday ten years ago and I don’t even enjoy it really. Furthermore, I’ve been reading lots of comments in the TypeGG Discord where it feels like people are dismissing my past accomplishments. I’m seeing lots of zoomers now saying I’m only a barely or not even top ten typist of all time just because they’ve zoomed past my previous records. I don’t really care that much and I consider my book to be a much bigger accomplishment than any of my past typing records, but this doesn’t seem to be how we evaluate greatness in any other sport. Shouldn’t it be based how much time each person was on top rather than who is better now? Do we say Chase Briscoe is a better driver (historically) than Kyle Busch just because Briscoe had a very good season this year and Busch sucked? No, we don’t. The same should apply here and it’s weird that I’m seeing so many people talk about people who are like 8th-place typists today who were never at any point #1 and rating them over me historically just because they are faster now, even though I’ve done things like remaining on top for ten years straight, simultaneously holding the world records on TypeRacer/Nitro Type/10FastFingers, or being the only typist to win both online Intersteno championships in the same year that nobody may ever do again. As a result of these discussions, I figure any further competing is going to hurt my legacy and reputation as a typist even more, and if I’m not enjoying it, there are a bunch of other things I both want and need to be doing with my time, and I’m not going to be able to monetize based on that, I don’t see the point.
I want to pivot my YouTube channel to being primarily an outlet for my auto racing analytics content because that’s where my passion is right now. I still intend to release my remaining home videos throughout the rest of the year, but for 2026, I want to start reading my various already-published articles on my channel because YouTube is my biggest platform since I have 6,000 subscribers there and only 50 here. It frustrates me that YouTube is my biggest platform ‘cause y’all know I am a good writer and I am not good with visuals or with graphics, but it became clear to me that nobody is going to make a living as a competitive typing gamer on there and I want to see if I might stand a better shot with my auto racing analytics work. I’ve noticed that there aren’t a lot of great auto racing YouTubers to begin with and auto racing analytics especially seems to be underserved. Even arguably, the two most famous auto racing analytics guys, David Smith and Grant at Auto Racing Analytics had 48 subscribers and 488 subscribers on YouTube respectively, even though they have larger platforms than I do elsewhere. Since I already have way more subscribers than that from my typing exploits, I see an opening here and I could totally end up dominating this niche if I wanted to. I think that is a better use of my time than making typing content at this point, especially considering I’ve already written so much already. Granted, I don’t expect virality from just reading a bunch of my racing analytics posts on there, but hopefully, it will open me up to a new audience. I’m thinking about just going through and reading the 1,000 greatest driver posts I’ve already written once a day on YouTube to see if I can tickle the algorithm’s fancy, but if any of my paid subscribers here are against that, maybe I’ll do something else. Let me know in the comments if you are one of my paid subscribers. And it would be a great way to simultaneously promote my Substack content. If I manage this right, I could see myself earning way more this way than I probably ever would from book sales.
I think this is going to be the last single-series update I do before the actual top 200 list, which I expect I probably will not finish by the end of the year, especially when I know this is not what I should be doing. I was going to do BTCC and DTM as well, but it’s getting late enough in the year that I should do everything else all at once rather than these individual updates for all the remaining series I’m covering. I have finished updating both my stock car and open wheel models and I may provide free posts with the 2025 and career ratings for all active drivers in those models before I finish the remainder of the list. I’m working on updating the touring car model as well. I’ve gone through all six of the series I consider to be major league touring car series (TCR World Tour, Supercars, BTCC, DTM, Porsche Supercup, Stock Car Brasil), but I haven’t gone through most of the minor leagues yet nor have I entered the past touring car results for all the new drivers now eligible for my model (and there are like 80 of those or so), but I’ll try and work on that soon. This likely won’t be finished until January though.