Bored at work today so I thought I would ask a semi subjective question which stems from a debate im having on another forum…
My answer is no…
As I recognize the physical, mental, and strategic demands of racing (of all types), I discredit motorsports as being true sports due to the fact that they are too reliant on machinery/equipment/technology/etc.
(When I say physical I mean everything from literally the turning of the wheel and pushing of the pedals, all the way to having your body be able to take the rigors of constant cornering and etc).
Essentially, I feel motorsports are not a true competition of “talent vs talent.”
What do you guys think… btw the other forum is almost 90% on the “yes” ballot.
I will put you in a fast car against a Talented driver in a slow car, and you will see that it is talent vs. talent. The machinery can only do so much.
If people consider cycling and horse racing as a sport than auto racing should also be considered a sport. As for the talent vs talent there are plenty of spec races as well as situations where it was clear that a slower car won simply because of the amazing effort of a driver/team (lemans last year with the r10 beating the 908) that would tend to prove that talent can be the difference maker.
As much as I love motorsports, no they’re not. Of course I keep a pretty strict definition and don’t consider stupid crap like bowling or billiards quality sports
I say no because there are way too many factors into most motorsports, from your engineering, platform, tuning, tire compound, pit crew and on and on.
those same factors come into every sport. hockey for example; composite sticks- flex, one piece vs two piece. t-blades vs conventional skates, radiuses, hollows, etc.
I get your point on that, and in essence, you could argue that in any sport.
I just feel racing crosses the line of what you can measure as a true sport based on toooooo many factors.
I used to play speedball too (paintball), and I would never call that a sport either. Too much reliance on how much money you could spend on what kind of gun, and shoot how much of what quality paint.
In most professional motorsports though the money issue is evened out because all the teams spend mega bucks. Do you really think money is the reason driver X comes in 2nd instead of 1st in Nascar, or IRL, or Formula 1?
In the NFL overtime games are basically decided by a fucking coin toss, and you want to debate the weather during qualifying as the reason to exclude motorsports from the sports genre? :roflpicard:
Haha… and how scrutinized is the NFL for that. I was just using that as an additional point lol. I would use officiating discretion in soccer as an example over that lol.
