Q. Are race drivers athletes?
A. No.*
*It doesn’t matter, so stop bickering with the stick-and-ball crowd, will you? Both sides will feel a lot better.
This is an issue that needs settling once and for all.
The argument broke out again in an online reader discussion after a column last week. This was at least the 10,000th time I’ve encountered the question. Enough is enough.
The larger, even more heated debate is whether motor racing is a sport, and we’ll finish that one off here, too.
To open the athlete silliness with a fine for-instance: Take the three drivers of Joe Gibbs Racing, currently NASCAR’s hottest team.
Denny Hamlin is a fitness fanatic, works out daily, has a personal trainer, the whole deal. He has one Cup win this year.
Kyle Busch used to work out regularly, but doesn’t anymore because his schedule is overloaded with running Trucks and Nationwide cars in addition to Cup.
Busch has 16 wins: eight in Cup, six in Nationwide, two in Trucks.
So the more he wins the less he trains, and the less he trains the more he wins.
Remember Tony Stewart’s big fitness fixation in the spring of 2007? He noticeably lost weight before it dawned on him in midseason that he wasn’t winning anyway. So he said the heck with it.
The fatter, happier Stewart went on his usual midsummer tear of three wins in four races.
Second best to Busch in this season’s Cup wins column is Carl Edwards with five. Edwards trains the most obsessively of anyone in NASCAR.
Senior statesman Jeff Gordon — NASCAR’s winningest active driver with 81 victories and four championships — bicycles and scuba dives, but just for recreation.
“Race shape” is what he calls his professional conditioning, figuring he’s working the same muscles over and over and building stamina in the 140-degree cockpit whenever he’s testing or racing. To train for racing, he races.
So you see? It doesn’t matter. There is no pattern. Who cares?
How did this argument get started in the first place?
It is all the fault of NASCAR, and that other governing body that wreaks much misery and madness in all our lives, Congress.
NASCAR made it an issue because of — hard as you may find this to believe — money.
During the national energy shortages of 1973-74, Congress went on a rationing binge, but exempted sports activities, using the terms “athletic” and “athletes” a lot.
So William Henry Getty France, “Big Bill,” founder of NASCAR and quite the politician in his time, led an entourage to Washington to lobby for the inclusion of NASCAR racing in the exemptions.
Part of his point was to try to show that drivers are athletes.
A NASCAR propaganda campaign ensued. Media people were encouraged to use “athletes” as a synonym for “drivers.” Thus arose the term you still read or hear to this day, “these athletes.”
It’s obnoxious, because it’s such a reach at best.
More at ESPN.com
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Sports Century on DVD
- Hornish, Wheldon nominated for ESPY Awards
- Starter apparel signs deal with Joe Gibbs Racing
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. videography to be released on DVD
- Baltimore Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. to pace Daytona 500 field
ummmm….. what??
whats with the rant?
NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes
F1 drivers are however.
You can’t weigh 250 and get in an f1 car and
Be successful but in NASCAR you can
(look at pics of montoya during f1 to now
And you’ll notice a sizeable difference)
All drivers are athletes. Webster’s says an athlete is
“A person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina”
So by the dictionary definition of the word, not the popular definition, I would say drivers fit that bill, regardless of what series they run in. However, racing is not a sport. Neither is golf, poker, video games (this includes you, Wii Fit!), cheerleading, darts, bowling, billiards, fishing, ping pong, etc… To me a sport requires these things in no particular order:
1) Physical movement to the point of fatigue (sitting in a car doesn’t count, regardless of how many G’s you might be pulling and how much you might sweat out during a race).
2) Well established and widely accepted rules (a published rulebook attainable by the public always helps too)
3) Physical conflict between competitors or groups of competitors (bye racing)
4) Absolute objective scoring system based on reaching a goal, and not based on opinion of judges (this means you’re out, gymnastics and X-Games)
5) You can’t drink a beer while partaking in said sport
NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes
Put down the jack daniels and realize it people.
Driving in NASCAR doesn’t require days of routine training
Like bowling would (practice practice practice, mental game, sport conditions- I’m a bowling instructor trust me it’s a sport)
NASCAR however requires none of this
If Racing is not a sport then Joining the Army(or whatever) and going over to Iraq (or wherever) is no different then Hunting.
Whoever says NASCAR drivers are not athletes have their head in the sand and maybe elsewhere.that is assinine.
TheTru7h wrote:
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Can U drive 200 MPH + around steep, sharp curves or on a road race track at high speeds?, damn, I can barely drive 110 and not start to freak out…
I didn’t think so, there is NO training in driving a high performance car such as a stock car?, B.S.
Yes, I am afraid so, you have to train, go to racing school the such to do this, so I call it a sport, not sure which kind of sport, but racing is a sport…
Fisha695 wrote:
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LOL, Good point………
How much training does Tony Stewart do?
Hardly any. Driving at 200 mph only takes
Confidence in your talent and nothing more .
I’d probably be able to do it after a few laps to shake
Down the car and figure out where the limit is.
F1 easily asks more of a drivers fitness than NASCAR
Which is why you don’t see a guy like tony Stewart in f1
And I could easily drive a vehicle competitively
On a road course. I’ve done it for years
TheTru7h wrote:
Some of that may be true,but if a cup driver isnt a so called athlete then neither is a f1 driver,but I say drivers are it maybe different than some sports as far as being in shape and such but in baseball or football you can make mistakes and its a error or giving up a touchdown,make a mistake driving and it can cost you your life.
Tru7h, I think you are slightly missing the point. Yes this is (as of now) a generally NASCAR/StockCar Racing website, but read the question that leads off the article. “Q. Are race drivers athletes?”
Yes race drivers are athletes.
Technically Body Builders and Pro Wrestlers are Athletes, they may not be athletes in the sense of the word that most people think of but yes they are by definition athletes.
This stupid question shows up everywhere, including here, at least once a year. I believe full time race car drivers are athletes. The rigors of bouncing around continuously for hours at a time could hurt someone in a lesser physical condition. WOOOOO, Nature Boy!!!!