12-10-2012, 05:05 PM
Yeah, they seem to be taking some of the worst aspects of NASCAR, believing that since NASCAR grew after rules changes that F1 would too, but applying them all wrong.
I understand not wanting to have winners determined based on who has the best technology, and I understand wanting to make changes for safety, but some of these are things that can be seen before implementation that they will just make things worse.
NASCAR really did grow in popularity, in part, because they did manage to make things more about driver skill than crew competence or better technology, and they did make things safer, even if they were too slow to adopt some things. I didn't follow F1 as closely, but I did appreciate that it was more than just turn left, and the speed and power of those cars was great to watch. I loved the Top Gear episode where Hammond had issues just getting the thing into gear because of how precise you have to be because of how fine tuned the set-ups are.
As to if it's a "sport" or not, I'm not too bothered by that. I think it is. While it requires a small set of athletic skills than other sports (namely it doesn't require certainly levels of strength or speed that most others do) it does still need reflexes, endurance, coordination. I also consider that a sport requires a participant to have a direct impact on how another participant performs. This happens in motor sport, what the other drivers do, impacts what every other driver can do.
This is also why I don't take offense at people saying swimming, track and field, and golf are not sports. While where you place is impacted that isn't a direct impact on how you perform. Michael Phelps could set a world record in an empty pool; Tiger Woods could shoot 15 under par on the course by himself; Usain Bolt could run faster than everyone else on a 30 lane track or a 1 lane track. So calling them athletic competitions is fine by me. In baseball, one of the least "athletic" of the major sports, a hit is determined by interactions between pitcher - batter and then batter - fielder. So drag racing is motorized athletic competition, but the Indy 500 is a motorized sporting event.
I also acknowledge that the competition aspect often improves performance too, that it's much harder to perform your best by yourself. This bears out in psychology where it's been shown that just about anything that someone is expert at (well practiced, full understanding of) sees a performance increase in a competitive setting, and things where a person isn't expert or well practiced tend to perform worse in a competitive setting.
No I don't really bother with all of that, I call golf, swimming, and track and field sports, but when it comes down to quibbles that is how I would draw my line if it mattered.
I understand not wanting to have winners determined based on who has the best technology, and I understand wanting to make changes for safety, but some of these are things that can be seen before implementation that they will just make things worse.
NASCAR really did grow in popularity, in part, because they did manage to make things more about driver skill than crew competence or better technology, and they did make things safer, even if they were too slow to adopt some things. I didn't follow F1 as closely, but I did appreciate that it was more than just turn left, and the speed and power of those cars was great to watch. I loved the Top Gear episode where Hammond had issues just getting the thing into gear because of how precise you have to be because of how fine tuned the set-ups are.
As to if it's a "sport" or not, I'm not too bothered by that. I think it is. While it requires a small set of athletic skills than other sports (namely it doesn't require certainly levels of strength or speed that most others do) it does still need reflexes, endurance, coordination. I also consider that a sport requires a participant to have a direct impact on how another participant performs. This happens in motor sport, what the other drivers do, impacts what every other driver can do.
This is also why I don't take offense at people saying swimming, track and field, and golf are not sports. While where you place is impacted that isn't a direct impact on how you perform. Michael Phelps could set a world record in an empty pool; Tiger Woods could shoot 15 under par on the course by himself; Usain Bolt could run faster than everyone else on a 30 lane track or a 1 lane track. So calling them athletic competitions is fine by me. In baseball, one of the least "athletic" of the major sports, a hit is determined by interactions between pitcher - batter and then batter - fielder. So drag racing is motorized athletic competition, but the Indy 500 is a motorized sporting event.
I also acknowledge that the competition aspect often improves performance too, that it's much harder to perform your best by yourself. This bears out in psychology where it's been shown that just about anything that someone is expert at (well practiced, full understanding of) sees a performance increase in a competitive setting, and things where a person isn't expert or well practiced tend to perform worse in a competitive setting.
No I don't really bother with all of that, I call golf, swimming, and track and field sports, but when it comes down to quibbles that is how I would draw my line if it mattered.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.