Is Motor Racing *Really* a Sport?
Written by Ray Champagne · June 17, 2008
I recently had a conversation with a couple of newly found friends at a local bar. NASCAR was on the TV and it was very apparent that my attention was drawn to the boob tube, watching my sport’s heroes chasing each other to the finish line. One of the guys I was with asked me what I got out of watching “guys driving around in circles”. Most of the time, I just brush this topic off whenever anyone asks, because in my opinion and experience, trying to explain my racing passion usually falls on deaf ears. To me, it’s like trying to explain watching golf (which, by the way, I also enjoy). If you don’t get it, you just don’t get it, and explaining is an exercise in futility. This time, however, I decided to “fight back” as it were, since these new found “friends” were a little too smug about the subject. I was going to give them a lesson. Turns out it wasn’t such a great lesson. One of them asked the inevitable question of why they call racing a “sport”. I retorted with the usual facts, like being in a racecar in 100 degree ambient heat, with temps approaching 130-140 degrees in the racecar, and g-forces and concentration and pinpoint precision and raw talent all being discussion points. In the end, though, I surprised even myself. I hadn’t really even convinced my own brain that motor racing is really a sport. A talent? Yes. Daredevil-ish? Yes. But a sport? I wasn’t so sure.
So I throw this out there - is racing, in the truest sense of the word, a traditional sport? I’m not talking about whether it is an “accepted” sport, just can it be considered a sport? Does it measure up to football, baseball, basketball, boxing, tennis or hockey, where the athletes run, skate, punch, shoot, or hit their way to victory? With maybe the exception of baseball, it’s very rare when an out-of-shape man (or woman) can compete on a professional level and be successful. Yet we see plenty of out-of-shape drivers who are immensely accomplished at their profession.
I don’t know, I’d really like to be right, but I fear that we may have labeled our sport something that it is not. After long internal debate with myself, I have concluded that most likely it is not. From a fan’s perspective, it is entertainment, but from a competitor’s standpoint, I just don’t see it.
Comments
8 Responses to “Is Motor Racing *Really* a Sport?”
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
[...] more at fastmachines.com [...]
Is racing really a sport??? Is slow-pitch church softball a sport? Who cares how you define a sport? The Olympics seem to be a “gold” standard of naming sports. So where did curling come from???
I personally love auto racing. I don’t care who thinks it is a sport. I hate Olympic Ice Skating, because the results seem to be largely determined before anybody skates.
NASCAR drivers are able to concentrate and process all sorts of information while under tremendous pressure, lap after lap. To a lesser degree your local short track late model driver does likewise, but maybe for only 50 laps. Racing takes more mental control than it does a physical ability. It may help you mentally to be in great physical shape, but a great physique doesn’t mean you’ll be a great driver.
According to Wikepedia (I don’t have a Webster’s at hand) spot is defined as: “Sport is an activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively”. And while there are some forms of motorsports that aren’t really that competitive, (F1 comes to mind, though I’m an F1 fan) by the definition, auto racing qualifies. Anyone can argue or place enough qualifiers on a thing to disqualify whatever is wanted disqualified, but the true requirement is, “do you enjoy it?” If you do, does it matter if it is a sport or not. And who cares what those smug fellows thought, they probably like something like squash!
The usual debate is whether race drivers are athletes or not. Frankly I’ve always said that ball team adn track and field folks would have a darned hard time with what some of these folks have to do in the seat of a NASCAR machine, drag machines or open wheel jobs under the conditions they do them under.
Frankly these desparaging arguements one finds themselves into are from folks who haven’t a clue what any of it is about - ball teams, racing - any of it.
Ernest Hemingway answered this question decades ago:
“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
[...] have colleagues) here at FastMachines, Ray Champagne recently asked the question of whether or not motor racing is a sport. Ray came to the conclusion that he had changed his mind after a discussion with some friends and [...]
Anything that requires a ball, or a stick Is a game, It takes more training than any game. A few years ago a University did a study on the fitness of people from most “sports” of the “tough” sports the football players scored very low, scoccer player were on top, but a motercycle rider that had won the 500cc world motocross title, that had stopped training, and admited was out of shape they said in the final report was “a animal”. My point is that racers not just motorcycle racers had to be in better shape than any other with the exception of scoccer players. Jeff Gorden of NASCAR got to drive a formula 1 car, and said that he would have to do a lot more training than he was.
[...] have colleagues) here at FastMachines, Ray Champagne recently asked the question of whether or not motor racing is a sport. Ray came to the conclusion that he had changed his mind after a discussion with some friends and [...]