@Alan_Dove Eh. There is sustained physical exertion and driving at speed requires specialized knowledge and specific physical skills. It’s not like hockey or anything but it is constant effort and even more constant focus.
Also, you can die. Not that this makes something a sport but it speaks to the seriousness with which piloting a racecar must be taken. It’s not at all casual or “fun”. Racing is a sport, in my estimation. It requires a high level of physical and mental ability.
Well, no, of course not. The forces are simulated. I don’t experience much of the physical. Ironically, a friend was telling me that Renault found his pal to be too fat for their sim team. I guess they want simmers to look like anorexic F1 drivers. That sorta makes sense since competitive gaming is now a thing folks watch for entertainment.
Also, any serious driver trains like any other athlete I am sure. Somewhere out there this AM, Mark Webber is likely biking 50 miles…
God forbid you suggest to a sim racer that they might be better served for weight loss purposes by going karting on Facebook. I was told that sim with a DD was just as fatiguing lol. Okidoki.
Edit: Racing can be a “hobby” but at high levels, it’s a sport and those guys are athletes, even our chubby NASCAR pals. All the Gs all the time at 200mph.
While most kart drivers are athletic they definitely arent athletes, at least not from karting. You do need to be fit for karting. On the other hand, F1 drivers and other high level of motorsport drivers are athletes for several reasons. First off and most obviously, the neck. Drivers sustain up to 6gs several times during a lap for over an hour. (at 5gs a head weighs 35kg). F1 drivers also have resting heart rates of 45-50 which is 25 below average suggesting that they do need a lot of cardiovascular strength. Temperatures also average at 122f. I could go on but im sure you can find more detailed articles about this all over the internet
It can be yeah, certainly on the arm muscles. I’ve coached on a professional simulator, and you can get some serious arm pump if you set the forces high enough. Also, braking on a sim, if set realistically with good equipment, requires more strength than karts.
Trains like an athlete is the key phrase here. Anyone can train like an athlete, it doesn’t make them an athlete. Better fitness can help most people in a ton of ways, but it doesn’t make the activity they do that benefits into something that makes them an athlete. Being fitter can make you a better sim racer…
That’s a lot to unpack. And, I fundamentally disagree as written. What is athleticism other than giving oneself over fully to the desire to master a physical ability? The results and how good you are are irrelevant. It’s the action that is the achievement.
It’s well accepted than karting is as physical as any high level motorsport, if not more so in several areas. Especially when you slap on the Vega Yellows and have to do a 20 minute race.
Anyone can get a decent resting heart rate through basic physical training.
Plenty of workers in countries with no air-con who have to deal with far worse conditions.
For me to be an athlete the activity has to be overwhelmingly physical where the attributes of the physical body are key to success and performance. Of course there’s always a mental aspect but it’s about degrees. In motorsport you need to get fit for sure, but after a certain point of fitness, there’s no return. However in a truly athletic sport attributes like strength and endurance are rewarded with direct results.
Also, truly athletic pursuits tend to be separated by gender/weight/disability categories, where thankfully motorsport is not.
That makes anyone who goes to the gym an athlete does it not?
if I was told that being really fit meant I made more money as a self-employed person, it doesn’t then suddenly make being self-employed for athletes.
For me, an athlete is someone who achieves results via a medium which tests physical attributes such as strength and endurance. Drivers are tested primarily on a skill based basis. Of course there’s overlap here, it’s not binary, but if Bolt severely injured his right leg his career would be over. In motorsport however… that’s not the case. Drivers can take on huge physical injuries, life changing, and still perform at the highest of levels. That’s what makes motorsport good!
Key phrase would be giving oneself over to a physical objective. This gets subjective but yes, maybe. It depends on what they are trying to accomplish. Fitness alone is not a sport.
This begs the question, why? What is the point of creating excess resistance, above and beyond what the kart produces irl? Fitness? Ok. But it’s not simulating the actual resistance of steering a kart.
Athletic disciplines have to separate competitors for fair competition due to inherent physical attributes that directly affect the result. non-athletic disciplines do not i.e racing and other predominantly skill based sports.
We do separate by weight, yes, but that is because it affects mechanical performance, not human performance. Stick someone light into the heavy category (with some extra lead) and the result and performance won’t change. Stick a 50kg lifter against a 120kg weight lifter… and it’s no competition.
It is also a safety factor. Once above a certain weight and safety threshold we don’t separate (i.e cars etc…). i.e someone who weights 20 stone is allowed to raced someone 10 stones in some tin top class or whatever. there’s no physical attribute that we differentiate competitors on in karting. Gender, weight, or disability. Not in any real meaningful fashion anyway beyond PR exercises.
I am merely pointing out that one, if they so wish, can make sim driving physically exhausting. Why? Why not?
I just balk at the idea race drivers are ‘athletes’. It’s just sound congratulatory nonsense to me to make us feel better and more important. Sure low-fitness can be a detriment to performance, but the threshold for base fitness level is so much lower than real athletic competition. No one is missing out a place in the final because their VO2 MAX was .2% below where it needed to be. We’re just not in the same league as actual professional athletes.
I’m arguing because I am annoyed at the guy in the video saying publicly that a great NASCAR driver wasn’t an athlete. In his opinion, which is likely uninformed.
Anyways the cars don’t drive themselves, they require extremely deep knowledge and finely trained physical ability to drive at the top of the game.
“Stick a 50kg lifter against a 120kg weight lifter… and it’s no competition.”
One has a different engine package than the other, basically. Not different.
Of course if someone thinks racing is physically easy, they are mistaken. But athletes? That’s an insult to those who are in athletic disciplines. We are comparing Nascar drivers to someone who can run the marathon in 2 hours?
Put it this way. How many race drivers would you think are on full-on steroid programs? If you think racing drivers are athletes you are in effect saying that a fair percentage will be on some serious cycles. Do you think steroid use would benefit you? It wouldn’t surprise me if there was some doping here and there with mind stimulants, but proper full on steroid use? not in car racing, can’t see it unless for weight loss.
physical extroardinariness appears to define athleticism in the context you describe. You are saying essentially that driving a racecar doesn’t require having a unique physical ability trained to its maximum (and therefore isn’t a sport.)
Neither does running a marathon. Want to see me run one? I was captain of my cross country team in high school. I could pull this off easy. Doesn’t make me an athlete insofar as marathoning is concerned
Or does it?
I am not claiming to be an athlete. If, by some miracle, redbull called me up and said, “Dom, your seat is finally ready…” I’d be training 24/7 and most certainly would see myself and be seen by others as an athlete. Everything would be in service to the goal of sharpening my skills and winning races.
Steroids only make sense if it serves a purpose. Nicks skinny former colleague who drove quietly but winningly is a good example. Things may have changed since the 90s but he did not need muscle mass beyond what he had.
Simple question. It is crude I know because it’s not binary in reality, but it serves the purpose here.
Would you rather have Lewis Hamilton brain or body if you wanted to win a race?
Would you rather have Eliud Kipchoge’s brain or body if you wanted to win a marathon?
Steroids are more than muscle mass. There’s a whole host of physical benefits (in a sporting context) that one could use them for.
Ok well I’d say beta blockers and other mental drugs are obviously something that folks would use. Assuming you have wiggle room in terms of making weight, ideally you’d want to train yourself to be extraordinarily lean and with thoughtful muscle mass in the right places. I don’t know enough about PEDs to speak intelligently. I don’t know that doping oxygen levels makes much sense in 20 lap finals. Would help, I guess.
Would you rather have Lewis Hamilton brain or body if you wanted to win a race?
Would you rather have Eliud Kipchoge’s brain or body if you wanted to win a marathon?
I’d like to have Eliud’s stamina and lightness. I’d like to have Lewis’s body, brain and seat as well. I am also really, really jealous of his bulldog pup.
And thus the cocaine (Nik’s story guy). Which probably is a dumb and ineffective way of looking for an edge.
For driving? Lewis for sure. The marathon guy would have to learn all the driving. Lewis comes pre-assembled. The trained skill is the salient bit here.
