Tuesday, September 18, 2007
NASCAR a Sport?
Although it is loved by thousands and thousands of people many people such as myself do not consider nascar a sport. I know it takes a lot of skill to drive four hundred laps when it hits triple digits on the thermostat and I'm not trying to take that away. However, the fact that it doesn't require any major physical action to compete makes me think whether or not it should be classified as a sport. I would classify it as entertainment because it takes a lot of skill, but not very much athletic ability. I know many people would probably be offended by this assumption but I don't think driving a racecar requires much athletic ability. Other sports are decided by how atheletes perform and NASCAR is decided by how a car performs. When you take the deciding factors out of the atheletes hands and into the hands of a judge or a car you lose the sporting spirit. Sports such as football, basketball, and baseball, all require skill, atheletic ability, and the outcomes are decided by the players. I understand that NASCAR is growing in popularity and people love it but I just can't call it a sport. I don't think the U.S. will come to a point where the fourth major "sport" is NASCAR because I think many other people have the same opinion as I do. However its popularity is rising in the U.S. and I guess I'm going to have to deal with the fact that it will be called a "sport" by majority of sports fans. Many people love NASCAR and obviously I'm not one of them so please forgive me if I've offended you and your love of NASCAR.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
This is a great topic to have a discussion about. I used to think that NASCAR was a joke. How can people sitting in a car driving in a circle be considered a sport? But the more I read about it and the more I watch it, I have changed my view. First of all like you said it's over 100 degrees in the cars. No human being, other then NASCAR drivers have the endurance to do that. I don't care if you have amazing stamina like Kobe or amazing endurance like LT these guys are just gifted. They work out, they practice, they study and like every other athlete they make a good amount of money. But the one thing I really disagree with you about is that it is how the car performs. I say this because if that were true then you would have a different person winning every time. But in NASCAR the best are usually up in the front which means that these guys are crazy at what they do. Yes some of it depends on the car, but at the end of the day it’s all about driver. So my thought is then is golf a sport? All people are doing is walking to a ball, swinging a stick and doing that over and over. If anything driving a car 200 mph with 40 other cars chasing you is much tougher then what golfers go through. So yes NASCAR should be considered a sport.
To start, I am not a NASCAR fan, but I completely disagree with your stance on this issue. I will start with the point you made on physical conditioning. Muscular strength is required to be able to control the wheel of a car that is travelling over one hundred miles per hour. Plus, as you said, with the races being hundreds of laps, in the scorching confines of a racecar, stamina and physical conditioning are essential to be able to maintain the mental focus required to be competitive in a race from wire to wire. The athleticism required to control a huge, speeding weapon from killing those around you requires you to be toned both mentally and physically. A few guidelines are given on a website I found to tell how to prepare somewhat to become a driver (http://www.ehow.com/how_2081993_become-nascar-driver.html). As for racing not being a major sport, you will find that NASCAR is the second biggest sport in America with 75 million fans, as of June 2005 (http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-06/2005-05-26-voa2.cfm). The fan base is nationwide and draws as big of a crowd as any sport. So though I can see where you are coming from, I have to disagree with you that NASCAR is not a legitimate sport.
As much as I would love to say that NASCAR is not a sport, unfortunately I think it is. I did not believe that NASCAR was an actual sport until I put it in perspective. NASCAR more then anything is mental which most sports tend to be. There is so much technical things going into the actual race like when to maneuver the car, how fast to go, when to stop in pit row, and what the other forty other guys doing. For those reasons and a few other of which I do not know, I dare say it….believe NASCAR is a sport.
Post a Comment