Comments on: NASCAR Drivers Are Athletes

By: Becca

Becca — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:11:28 +0000

Wow Lefty you had me worried when you brought up the astonauts and other military personel. Unlike Jim I do not believe them to be athletes (Hero’s yes) as they are not competing for a win which awards them a trophy, title or money. And before you go getting all technical you know what I mean. LOL

By: kllrbeez17

kllrbeez17 — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:30:20 +0000

You know that they are athletes, I get so tired of hearing they are not. It is refreshing to see that someone took the right aproach and single handedly proved that to be a driver, you must be an athlete. Excellent, must tell others about you excellent blog.

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:55:36 +0000

Nicely articulated Lefty. You almost have me thinking you’re attorney. Very forcefully put forward. A slam dunk. I would add that I think astronauts and army ranger are indeed athletes, though not necessarily competing in a sport.

By: Lefty Turner

Lefty Turner — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:04:18 +0000

While I may or may not agree with the fact that race car drivers are athletes, for arguments sake, I won’t devulge where I stand at this time. I will simply bring up what I believe is a logical question to pose, based on the reasons often given for saying they are athletes. And that would be, are Astronauts athletes ? Are fighter pilots athletes ? Are Navy Seals and Army Rangers Athletes ?

Those examples all fall into the categories mentioned in determining that drivers are in fact athletes, yet, these heroes of America are not considered athletes.

To answer this argument, one need only look at the text book definition of Athlete.

Dictionary.com defines Athlete as “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.”

Do Nascar Drivers fit that definition ? Well, they are trained or gifted in contests involving agility and stamina, and yes, strength too. They are a participant in excercise, or a game requiring physical skill. So far so good. The only thing left to determine from the definition of athlete is, are they a participant in a sport. So now we must determine what is a sport.

Sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.” Does racing require skill ? Why yes, it does. Does it require physical prowess ? Sure it does, as stated by previous commenters and the author. Is it of a competitive nature ? Beyond the shadow of a doubt it is.

So from that, we can all see, Nascar is a sport, and it’s drivers are athletes.
That being said, I am content to just say they are Race Car Drivers. Enough said.

By: Nascar Jackets

Nascar Jackets — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:10:58 +0000

Let’s also not forget that sometimes it’s 100+ degrees in those cockpits. Just enduring that heat for a few hours makes anyone an athlete in my book.

By: Becca

Becca — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:30:05 +0000

You got all that right Jim! And although that show on making celebrities into drivers wasn’t all that successful in ratings, it proved a point that it’s not as easy as it looks! And those celebrities had some of our elite drivers as their coaches!

Great Blog and I love reading it!