Sport or No Sport: Auto Racing?

As much as I hate to say this Auto racing is a sport. The level of concentration it takes to drive one of those cars that long is amazing, and unlike poker or chess the drivers only have a split second to make a choice.

Yes, nowadays. The drivers have to be super fit to cope with physical forces of up to 5G on their bodies (maybe not on an oval, but in F1). Forty years ago probably not, due to the "pie and chips" nature of the sport. But now they are physically active. They even work in teams - in old F1, a driver may have to give up his car to help his team mate if his car was in trouble, or slow down to let a team mate with a chance of winning the Championship win a race he wouldn't. I may call it Motor Sport (along with the rest of Britain), but I agree with your standpoint.

Driving is a skill, not a sport. Danica Patrick is proof of this. Show me a woman who can play at an MLB, NBA, or NFL professional level, or even come close for that matter. They don't exist. I like that Danica is proving 1)driving is a skill based event and not an athletic competition, and 2) she finally gives me something to watch when racing highlights come on.

This is again one of those everyday things normal people do. I drive everyday. I also shower everyday and I also might make a sandwich everyday too. Does that mean those two are sports now? I can drive. Put me in Jeff Gordon's car and I'd compete.

Can you bet on it? NASCAR, yes... you driving to work? No... - Who is the athlete? The driver or the car? I can out-shower Jeff Gordon anyday... wanna bet on it?

It is a sport. It requires concentration, great reflexes, and physical endurance (both from G forces and from extremes of heat). To say that it is not a sport because normal people do it is idiotic. How often do you drive in a situation like a NASCAR driver?

The question is arose then, is Top Fuel racing a sport? Drag racing involves many of things, but is farther out of the mainstream, hurting its credibility. Driving a car in a straight line for under 10 seconds, sport or no sport?

NASCAR's dont handle like your Honda driving down the road. The power sterring system is not made for a comfort control drive. Throw in the fact that those cars have no AC and the average temperature on a track is well over 100 degrees and your talking about more than your average Sunday drive.

All that is well an good, and it sure makes it difficult, and very uncomfortable, but do those things qualify something as sport, or more specifically, the higher realm of athletics? Before these conversations go on, terms in their most basic sense need defined. Sport vs. Athletics. NASCAR is a sport, but it is not athletics. While every athletic event is a sport, not every sport is athletics. Lawn darts is a sport, BASEketball is a sport; in its most basic form, sport is a source of diversion. Yes, NASCAR is that, but is it athletics?

July 17, 2006 ~ Work In Progress

Athletics defined from dictionary.com
1. Activities, such as sports, exercises, and games, that require physical skill and stamina.
2. The principles or system of training and practice for such activities.
Sports defined from dictionary.com
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.
Activity as defined for this articles purpose
any form of leisure that one or more persons can take part in where a ultimate goal is to beat an opponent(s) or beat a personal best score.

I guess it's hard to classify a sport to a single definate description. We have events like curling, archery, fishing and so on. Now I fish tournaments regularly and I also golf, target shoot, play poker and much more. Maybe dominos are considered a sport because of skill and stratagy is used and you compete to win. I disagree with dominos being a sport; this should be on the Gameshow Network or Bravo along with Celebrity Poker Showdown and not on ESPN. I love poker but I won't call it a sport, I call it a game. This is why I have decided to create this process. The question people seem to always ask is; “What makes a sport, a sport?"

I am going to start of and create a definition I will use in this theory. In a collection of all games, sports, leisuly past times and events we can participate in we need a describing term. I am choosing to lable such actions as an “activity”. My definition of activity is; any form of leisure that one or more persons can take part in where a ultimate goal is to beat an opponent(s) or beat a personal best score.

Now that we have “activity” defined we can move on to trying to decide what makes a sport a sport. To do this we need to apply variables to a formula. The variables are parts of the activity that when combined will either make or break that activity as being classified as a sport.

Obviously it takes skill, stratagy and finess to participate well in activities, and there are also levels of coordination needed as well as competition factors. A sport should be classified as an activity that involves physical exurtion to achieve a goal. So therefore, I would state that a sport is an activity that required physical exursion of some level.

Physical Exursion
Then Tic-Tac-Toe would be a sport if competition was the factor, but it is not a sport, it's a activity. So sports should include: Activities involving physical exertion including but not limited to extreme sports. Physical exertion is going to be my key variable and will be defined in means of; An activity that raises the cardio level above the resting heart rate and is limited to only occuring from physical actions. Therefore when your heart rate increase from bluffing at poker, this would not classify as a raised cardio level for sport classification.

Coordination
So under these qualifications, bowling is a sport, right? There is a physical action taking place of throwing different weighted balls using different spin styles to obtain the goal of knocking pins over. Well, I would classify this as a low cardio sport. But this takes a certain cordination as I stated, which is my next factor. Coordination in terms of my variable includes (skill, stratagy and finess).

Competition
All activities have different levels of competition. Whether you are playing by youself, a match game or a tournament, there are different levels of competitive natures we face.

Base Formula
(Coordination+Competition)(Physical Exertion)= SPORT In case of chess Physical Exertion = 0, therefore Sport = 0

3 variables:
Coordination = A
Competition = B
Physical Exertion = C
Sports = X
x=c(a+b)

Next I will break each variable down seperatly and define how I am going to determine values. Each variable will have its own formula to determine the value to be plugged into the main formula.

Ooo, infinite numbers, mathematical constructivism or bust, that'll make it easier.

Chess has competition and requires coordination but physical exertion is not there. so physical exertion represented by C would be Zero. that makes X = Zero.

I know what Manny said, moving a piece is physical exertion. Then by this thought the following activities are sports as well: Sleeping, Wiping yourself, Showering, Reading, Typing on a computer, Combing your hair, Shaving your face ect.

PHYSICAL EXERTION:
An activity that raises the cardio level above the resting heart rate and is limited to only occuring from physical actions. Therefore when your heart rate increase from bluffing at poker, playing chess or Chutes and Ladders; this would not classify as a raised cardio level for sport classification.
Furthermore...Go sit in a chair for five minutes and do absolutly nothing and take you heart rate. Now move a remote control representing a chess piece about 12 inches. Take you heart rate again. If there was a noticable difference call a doctor because you got issues.

Now, there is MENTAL exertion in chess, cards and other activities, and that can make a heart rate increase...BUT that is different from PHYSICAL exertion.

I am not calling Sport and Activity the same thing. For a forfeit, yes you are right there is no exertion, but the WIN that the team gets does not come from a sport being played. Webster dictionary defines forfeit as: the act of losing or surrendering something as a penalty for a mistake or fault or failure to perform. This is an awarded win for an event that was scheduled. But no sport was played at that scheduled event. If I win at solitare by beating my high score on my computer I technically get a win but are we going to call it a sport? I can't base this on an activity getting a win or not.

I AM betting with bill paying. If I pay and pay on time I win, and if I don't I lose having to pay more money to the collector.

The whole point of this formula is to create a way to measure a particular event and see how strong of a value it has as being considered a sport. Golf vs. Tri-athalon.

As for variable of exertion it goingt o break down as a increase in heart rate. The increse has to meet a certain % to be considered physical exertion. I'm not going to get into it all now but it'll be all on my page soon and I'll put it up as an opinion article.

Physical exertion = energy to run the robot. Coordination = Programing. Competition = Opponent.

That brings up a differnt topic; a robot could play baseball. Then they would be playing a sport. Robot deathmatch or whatever that program was called would not be.

The robots might be able to play a 'sport' or go through the motions, but there is somebody controling or programing them. As you would control PlayStation video games. I would say they can play sports but it would be no different than playing a video game.

They can play sports as the little characters on Sega or PlayStation play sports...through the control of a programer or controller.

To get technical:
THe dictionary defines a calorie as: Any of several approximately equal units of heat, each measured as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C from a standard initial temperature, especially from 3.98°C, 14.5°C, or 19.5°C, at 1 atmosphere pressure.

Robots use energy to opperate. This is measurable by units of the calorie. Calorie isn't limited to burning of human energy.

But, robots are simply being controlled by a person, whether by preprograming or manual control. So by making these robots play a sport or battle in a live setting, is NO different than playing a video game.

If I bet on what year the oak tree out back is going to fall down is that a sport? You can bet on anything, that does not make that particular event, activity or betting itself a sport.

It's certainly more of a sport than competetive eating, chess or poker.

I'm not going to drive myself 'crazy', I got a system; is it perfect?...maybe not yet but it makes 'logical' sense and as I finish what I'm working on it will draw a line between what is or isn't a sport. You are welcome to your own opinion as I am about betting constituting a sport or not. I had classes with the same debates, I have a minor in Tourism and Sport Recreation, but all I can say is this...Like it or not, it's a system that can offer numbers to answer this run out question of is it a sport.