Race car drivers are held to a ridiculous double standard and criticized far too often for many reasons while other athletes are not for similar reasons.
There is a ridiculous double standard that race car drivers and racing face in general from the public, particularly non-racing fans who feel the need to inject their opinions on a subject they know nothing about.
These people ignore the fact that the same reasons they use to criticize race car drivers and racing in general are the reasons they could use to criticize other athletes and other sports in general to an even greater extent, yet they do not do so. Here is an overview of what I am referring to.
There are plenty of misconceptions that these people have about race car drivers and racing in general. Among those misconceptions are the ideas that race car drivers are somehow not athletes and that racing is somehow not a sport.
Previous fact-based analyses published on Beyond the Flag prove that both of those ideas are fallacies in far more ways than one. You can read about why race car drivers are undoubtedly athletes here, and you can read about why racing is undoubtedly a sport here.
So many fallacies
If race car drivers aren’t athletes, other athletes aren’t, either. If racing isn’t a sport, no other “sport” is, either. Yet people who know nothing about racing still believe their fallacy-based opinions that race car driver are not athletes and that racing is not a sport.
They make these claims while ignoring the fact that everything that they believe makes race car drivers not athletes and makes racing not a sport could also be used to discuss why basketball, football, hockey and baseball players are not athletes and why basketball, football, hockey and baseball are not sports.
But as stated in the previous slide of this article, these concepts of why race car drivers are athletes and why racing is a sport are discussed in more depth in two separate Beyond the Flag articles here and here, respectively. Let’s get to the main point of this article.
As also referenced on the previous slide of this article, there are several misconceptions that people have about race car drivers and racing in general. There is also a separate article about that on Beyond the Flag as well, which you can read here.
There is one misconception that really stands out and is the true double standard that will be discussed in this article. Even if this misconception were true, it still does not provide any reason for criticism of race car drivers and racing in general.
The double standard
The whole concept of “going around the same circle over and over again” making race car drivers not athletes and making racing not a sport is a true joke — that’s even if it were true, which it isn’t seeing as how no two tracks are alike and the NASCAR Cup Series, IndyCar and Formula 1 all race on several road and/or street courses.
I’ll believe that the people making this claim actually believe that this makes race car drivers not athletes and racing not a sport when these people claim that basketball, football, hockey and baseball aren’t sports and basketball, football and hockey players aren’t athletes because all they do is “go back and forth over and over again” and all baseball players do is “run around in circles” throughout games.
It’s the exact same concept. Plus, every NASCAR Cup Series, IndyCar and Formula 1 race track is bigger than every National Basketball Association (NBA) court, National Football League (NFL) field, National Hockey League (NHL) ice rink and Major League Baseball (MLB) field, and it really isn’t even close.
The smallest track in the NASCAR Cup Series, IndyCar and Formula 1 is the 0.526-mile Martinsville Speedway, which hosts two NASCAR Cup Series races per season. Its two straightaways are 800 feet (266.67 yards) long. Keep in mind, Martinsville Speedway is the SMALLEST track in those three series.
Meanwhile, the longest track is the 4.352-mile Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, which is used by Formula 1. That track isn’t a circle, either; it is a road course with several turns, both left and right.
The double standard (continued)
By comparison, NBA courts are 94 feet (31.33 yards) by 50 feet (16.67 yards), NFL fields are 360 feet (120 yards) by 160 feet (53.33 yards), NHL ice rinks are 200 feet (66.67 yards) by 85 feet (28.33 yards) and the average MLB field is roughly 420 feet (140 yards) by 450 feet (150 yards) at its longest and widest points, respectively.
If race car drivers are not athletes and racing isn’t a sport simply because race car drivers go “around and around and around the same circle over and over again” despite the fact that the repetitive actions done by race car drivers are done on a much bigger scale than the repetitive actions of any of these other athletes in these other sports, then shouldn’t the people falsely claiming that race car drivers are not athletes and racing is not a sport be claiming that these other “athletes” are not athletes and these other “sports” are not sports?
Yes. Yet no one does.
Consider this. You could fit the entire Vatican City, Liberty Island, Taj Mahal, Churchill Downs, Rose Bowl Stadium, Roman Colosseum, Yankee Stadium and White House with plenty of room to spare inside the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is used by both IndyCar and the NASCAR Cup Series.
In fact, when the Virginia Tech Hokies vs. Tennessee Volunteers college football game was held at the 0.533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway, the second shortest track on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule behind only Martinsville Speedway, in September of 2016, the field really didn’t take up all that much space in the infield of the track. I even had a friend comment in a group chat about how huge the venue was for that game.
The double standard (continued)
However, a 0.533-mile track isn’t huge whatsoever in racing terms. In fact, it is extremely small. Yet it seems huge to non-racing fans, who ironically think that going around in circles on race tracks, including those five times as big as Bristol Motor Speedway such as Daytona International Speedway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Pocono Raceway and Talladega Superspeedway, makes race car drivers not athletes and racing not a sport.
Never mind the fact that all basketball, football and hockey players do is go back and forth all game and all baseball players do is run around in circles at their, in racing terms, microscopic venues.
And never mind the fact that they go back and forth all game and run around in circles all game for far less time during their games than race car drivers do during races.
NBA games contain 48 minutes of action, yet they last an average of two hours and 15 minutes (135 minutes). NFL game clocks contain 60 minutes, yet they last an average of three hours and 12 minutes (192), and there is only an average of 11 minutes of actual action in them.
NHL games contain 60 minutes of action, yet they last an average of two hours and 20 minutes (140 minutes). MLB games last an average of three hours and five minutes (185 minutes), yet there is only an average of 18 minutes of actual action in them and not even six minutes if you only include the time when balls are in play and runners are attempting to advance on the base paths.
Here is what Steve Moyer of The Wall Street Journal had to say back in July of 2013 about the actual amount of action in MLB game.
"“By WSJ calculations, a baseball fan will see 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three-hour game. This is roughly the equivalent of a TED Talk, a Broadway intermission or the missing section of the Watergate tapes…The WSJ reached this number by taking the stopwatch to three different games and timing everything that happened. We then categorized the parts of the game that could fairly be considered “action” and averaged the results. “The almost 18-minute average included balls in play, runner advancement attempts on stolen bases, wild pitches, pitches (balls, strikes, fouls and balls hit into play), trotting batters (on home runs, walks and hit-by-pitches), pickoff throws and even one fake-pickoff throw. This may be generous. If we’d cut the action definition down to just the time when everyone on the field is running around looking for something to do (balls in play and runner advancement attempts), we’d be down to 5:47.”"
Race car drivers do not get enough credit
When race car drivers strap into their race cars, they are racing, non-stop, for typically between an hour and half and four hours depending on whether you are talking about a NASCAR Cup Series, IndyCar or Formula 1 race. Races can easily be longer than NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB games are even not including the many parts of those games that contain no action whatsoever.
Yes, there are caution flag periods and safety car periods in races, but even during these periods, there is still a lot going on — after all, the drivers are still…driving — and the time spent under these periods as opposed to the time actually spent racing is minuscule.
Even though they certainly are not going “around and around and around the same circle over and over again” and no two tracks are alike, yes, in each race, race car drivers are going around and around the same track over and over again regardless of whether the race is an oval race or a road or street course race.
But why does this thought process disqualify them from being athletes in the eyes of millions of people, especially when basketball, football and hockey players are considered athletes when all they do is go back and forth throughout their games in much smaller venues for much shorter amounts of time and baseball players are considered athletes when all they do is run around in circles throughout their games in much smaller venues for much shorter amounts of time?
Racing gets too little credit
To continue off of the last slide, why does this thought process disqualify racing from being a sport in the eyes of millions of people, especially when basketball, football, hockey and baseball are considered sports with all of this in mind?
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It doesn’t — end of story.
I am certainly not saying that athletes such as basketball players, football players, hockey players and baseball players are not athletes, and I am not saying that sports such as basketball, football, hockey and baseball are not sports, either.
However, if non-racing fans would apply the same logic to these athletes and sports that they do to race car drivers and racing, which is logic that makes them believe that race car drivers are not athletes and racing is not a sport, these fans would not consider these other athletes and sports “athletes” or “sports”.
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With all of this in mind, is the double standard faced by race car drivers and racing in general one that can be overcome in the near future or even at all? If so, how does it need to be addressed?