Best Of 2014: Apple Pulls Drag Racing App From Its Store, Apparently Does Not Know Difference Between Street Racing and Drag Racing – More Will Vanish


Best Of 2014: Apple Pulls Drag Racing App From Its Store, Apparently Does Not Know Difference Between Street Racing and Drag Racing – More Will Vanish

Stuff like this really makes us cringe. Mark Bright is the creator and owner of Drag Log, a smart phone application that drag racers can use to log their runs, document what tracks they have been to, and share their results on social media platforms. In short, it takes the old school hand written log book and brings it to modern standards while also allowing people to have some fun. Apple is apparently opposed to this because they recently pulled it from their App Store and have told Bright in not so many words that they’ll continue to remove apps like this in the future. Apple claimed that the app violated a couple of their rules for what is acceptable. What rules were broken?

Apple took the app down because they believe its use may results in physical harm and that it encourages criminal or “clearly reckless” behavior. We’re not kidding, that is what they reportedly told Bright in a response after he asked what the heck was going on. This makes no sense because there are apps out there for hang gliding, rock climbing, skateboarding, and any number of “reckless” activities that may result in someone suffering physical harm. Clearly, the issue here is that Apple has no idea of what drag racing is as opposed to street racing. We’d like to offer our succinct explanation between the two.

When someone gets beaten to death on a sidewalk, we don’t call it an MMA fight and when people race on the street we don’t call it a drag race. 

This app is clearly designed for use by people racing on tracks, it is clearly designed with the racer’s data logging in mind and it is clearly not intended to be something damaging to the sport of drag racing, it is there to help racers. What’s the problem here?! Oh, and the thing has been live for THREE YEARS!

 

READ BELOW TO SEE MARK’S INITIAL CONTACT WITH US SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND HIS SIDE OF THE STORY –

 

Upon making a recent update to this app for the new iPhone 6 release, Apple has contacted me and pulled the entire application from the App Store after being available for the better part of three years, citing violations of its App Store Guidelines which use logic that I consider to be a loose and false interpretation of Drag Racing:

They are citing violations:

  • 13.3: Apps whose use may result in physical harm may be rejected
  • 22.3: Apps that solicit, promote, or encourage criminal or clearly reckless behavior will be rejected


I have written back my thoughts to help clarify an obvious misunderstanding of the sport and the function of the app. It was useless mentioning that each drag strip in America has their own strict safety requirements. I continued to state the intended usage is to store closed-course Drag Strip quarter mile times for racers and not meant to be used during a race at all and certainly not illegally on the street. But to no avail – Apple will not budge on this. I also cited many other applications that are similar in nature and do not intend to violate either of the above reasons. Along with not budging, even worse, Apple mentioned to continue to take other apps of this nature down too.

Am I missing something here? These applications are simply note-taking apps with functions geared (no pun intended) toward drag racers. I am disappointed for all developers attempting to progress the sport. I certainly hope this is not the end for apps of this type. Maybe Apple is under this thought because there is currently no ‘dominant’ app to serve this growing market. If these apps were half as popular as the Angry Birds or even Drag Racing arcade games out there, I feel this would be over-looked.

Here we stand again in the middle of another muscle car era and once again history repeats itself where rules and regulations intend to stop our fun. I understand this situation doesn’t open the flood gates by any means, but maybe this is a crack in the foundation that starts as a leak.

drag log


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5 thoughts on “Best Of 2014: Apple Pulls Drag Racing App From Its Store, Apparently Does Not Know Difference Between Street Racing and Drag Racing – More Will Vanish

  1. Dan Stokes

    I cringe in the same way when newscasters talk about someone getting killed in a “drag race” and then go on to show footage of what’s clearly a street race. I’ve sent many an Email to newscasters letting them know that a “drag race” is, by definition, a “timed speed contest on a closed race course” and have yet to get a response from anyone. They don’t seem to think that it matters.

    Maybe I should start referring to it as a discrimination issue. These same newscasters would NEVER refer to a native American as an “Injun” or a black person by the N-word and yet they’ll defame a sport and thereby all the folks who participate without a second thought.

    I know SANE has their hands full but I wonder if they could pull together a press packet explaining why it matters and how to fix it in their daily reporting.

    Dan

  2. Alan Grimes

    Why not just put it on Android, Apple need to be shown that theirs is not the only option and that they should revise their thoughts and most of all pricing and exclusivity rules. I used to champion apple over Microsoft, now I think they are worse. Poor products, style over function and crazy prices!

  3. Steve Williams

    Change the name of the app to some other drag racing term for instance “holeshot” or “burnout” and change the look of the app the word will get around to the racers they’ll know where to go to find this

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