February 22, 2009
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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It seems that at least once a year, someone in the media decides to point out that either 1: NASCAR drivers are not athletes or 2: NASCAR is not a real sport. I am pretty sure in the 5 years I have been a fan, there has been at least one of these columns per year.
Mike Durkin with the Minnesota Daily had one n 2004.
Gary Sonnenfeld with the Daily Free Press (A newspaper at Boston University) had his own take on it.
As did the News Record (another college paper) in Cincinnati.
LaGuan Fuse said “I don’t think so” when commenting on drivers as athletes in his The Current (yet another university publication) column in 2006.
Ed Hinton, who writes for ESPN.com, wrote a column last fall on the fact that drivers aren’t athletes.
There is even a NASCAR is not a sport website.
This year is no different.
This week, it was David Whitley, sports writer for the Orlando Sentinel, who dusted off the “NASCAR drivers don’t deserve to be called athletes” idea and tossed it onto a piece of paper for people to read.
Just a piece from his column:
“The argument whether drivers are athletes has been around a lot longer than (17 years). Anybody with more than a carburetor for brains knows the truth.
Yes, drivers are athletes. But only if you think it's athletic to make a Grilled Texas Bacon Double Patty Melt Plate. That's one of the delicious specials you'll find at Waffle House. Preparing it requires stamina, strength, concentration and guts.
Sounds a lot like driving, no?”
Yes, Mr. Whitley has decided that NASCAR drivers are no more an athlete than the guys at your local Waffle House.
Apparently, Mr. Whitley has never bothered to go to a race, go into the pits, and talk to drivers and teams about just what it takes to drive a race car. He hasn’t registered to take part in any of the multiple driving schools that are available for the average fan who wants to get a taste of what it is like to drive 200 mph for hours at a time in a 140 degree tin can. And he certainly has no idea what it is like to manhandle a car around a superspeedway, where the G-forces can strain your neck and keeping the car off the guy next to you can eventually make your arms and fingers ache.
For an idea of just what it takes for a person to sit behind the wheel of a stock car week in and week out, head over to CNN and search for Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s story from 2005 where he documented just what happens to a driver over the course of a race.
Sanjay Gupta…the same guy that President Obama considered to be Surgeon General of the United States. Not just some NASCAR fan that is willing to comment willy nilly on a health issue.
"There's this perception out there that NASCAR drivers are beer-swilling, cigar-puffing, pot-bellied guys making a bunch of left turns every Sunday for a few hours," Gupta said. "I didn't really understand until I started looking into it the degree of athleticism and the toll that being a NASCAR driver takes on your body. That was what was sort of most striking to me.
"Talking to a lot of sports physiologists, you understand that race car driving, NASCAR driving, has the same demands physically on the body that a long-distance runner, a marathon runner, has, for about the same length of time. I thought that was very interesting."
"The incredible strain on the human body from the heat, g-forces and the mental focus is like nothing I've seen before," Gupta said.
A friend of mine sent me a note about a DJ in her area that had the same thought about NASCAR as David…until he tried it. “When I see guys writing stuff like this it reminds me of a DJ that was on the talk radio station here in NJ. Years ago he was putting down drivers saying how easy he thought it was to be a driver and how he could do it easy, they just drive in a circle, and there was nothing to it YADA YADA YADA. Well a local driver from Wall Twp heard him and offered to drive him a few laps around the track, to show him what it was like. DJ took him up on it and said he could do 50 or more laps easy. DJ lasted only about 10 or so laps! LOL!!! Got out of the car white as a ghost, shaking, hyperventilating and sick as dog!! LMAO!! He never made fun of racing again and apologized on air for what he said. Too bad they can't make people who write about racing when they know nothing about it, be made to get in a racecar and see what it is like before they write.”
I sent Mr. Whitley an e-mail about his column; it was very basic, nothing mean or derogatory at all. All I did was suggest that he read what Dr. Gupta had to say, and perhaps, like the DJ in New Jersey, take time out to go an hour east and sign up for the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and then re-evaluate his comparison between NASCAR drivers and Waffle House line cooks. I received the following e-mail:
Dear Loyal or Not-so-Loyal Reader,
First let me apologize for the form-letter response. I try to answer every email individually, but that would take so long in this case that I would never find time to go do to myself what many of you suggested. And I've learned over the years that when topics generate a certain level of passion, further debate is pointless.
The opinions on this column have ranged from 100 percent agreement to reasoned dissent to I should be dragged naked behind a race car for 500 miles. That's how it goes in this business. Especially when it's an issue people take as personally as whether Tony Stewart is an athlete.
Whatever your view, thanks for taking the time to share it. And yes, I'm sure Mark Martin could kick my weenie sportswriter butt.
Sincerely,
David Whitley
Getting down to the bare bones of it, let’s take a look at the definition of athlete: “A person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.”
Another definition is: “A person possessing the natural or acquired traits, such as strength, agility, and endurance that are necessary for physical exercise or sports, especially those performed in competitive contexts.”
Nowhere does it say an athlete is required to have bulging biceps or six pack abs (although Mark Martin and Carl Edwards have both). Nowhere does it say that the athlete is required to run the length of a football field while being chased by large defensive linemen (however Michael Waltrip and Kyle Petty have both run numerous marathons, including the Boston Marathon.) Several drivers are scratch golfers…isn’t Tiger Woods considered to be a great athlete?
I know the debate on this topic has been going on for decades, with some folks absolutely convinced that there is no way a person who sits behind a steering wheel could be considered an athlete. But I challenge anyone who doubts that any of the men…or women…who climb behind the wheel are athletes to give it a try themselves. You can find a driving school at almost any major track in America. Invest a little time and get behind the wheel and give racing a try. After taking a few laps around a track in a car at speed (and not at the speed you sit in your sedan on your local interstate highway, but at something over 150 mph) get out and see if you still think that these guys aren’t athletes.
I am pretty sure you’ll have a hard time saying they aren’t.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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