Are the drivers athletes?

I was looking at that tweet last night. Certainly interesting but man, I gotta tell you, all drivers are not athletes. I used to have season tickets to Dover. As far back as when the races were 500 miles or about 5 hours in length. Heck, even Jimmy Spencer competed with regularity back then. Jimmy could wheel the car around the speedway in the high heat of the day but I think if you were to have taken him on in a game of one on one basketball in the infield, he'd have been a bench warmer. No, not all drivers are athletes.

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Some athletes are very good at doing one thing only, other can cross over into other sports.
Baseball players can't do much more than 2-3 minutes at a time. Football players need a rest after
each play. Not many of those type could stand 2 hrs in a hot car and have the concentration required.
I say Drivers are athletes.
 
Current engines produce a lot more heat than the ones Spencer et al used.

I once lost 8 pounds of water in 200 laps on a very hot Sunday afternoon at Evergreen Speedway in Washington state. I was literally sitting in it. These days, race winners and front runners are athletes. JMO, of course.
 
They're race car drivers. It isn't inherently athletic in the way that many, um, athletic competitions are. Tony Stewart was basically never an athlete, but he was an incredible driver. Does being athletically fit and in better physical condition make a good race car driver better? Yes, I believe so. Some forms of racing demand considerably higher levels of physical conditioning than others.

Some baseball players are tremendous athletes, some couldn't seriously be called athletes at all. You can't play center field or shortstop without being a real athlete. You probably can play first base, maybe left field, certainly DH. I don't think all NASCAR drivers are athletes, but that doesn't really say much in and of itself. They may still be very good drivers.
 
I think a lot of people knock NASCAR drivers as athletes because they're sitting down during competition, but it still requires a great deal of hand-eye-foot coordination and endurance. I think they're athletes, just with different physical demands than the stick and ball guys.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I was looking at that tweet last night. Certainly interesting but man, I gotta tell you, all drivers are not athletes. I used to have season tickets to Dover. As far back as when the races were 500 miles or about 5 hours in length. Heck, even Jimmy Spencer competed with regularity back then. Jimmy could wheel the car around the speedway in the high heat of the day but I think if you were to have taken him on in a game of one on one basketball in the infield, he'd have been a bench warmer. No, not all drivers are athletes.

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The John Daly of Nascar.
 
Thumbnail sizes are more appropriate in certain situations, IMO.
 
No. Texas Oilfield workers in August put in 12 hours plus in brutal heat working near hot combustion engines. I promis their heart rates are up for long durations. And they aren't having fun and paid way less. Lose pounds of water too in a shift. Make them athletes?
 
If stock car drivers are, what about drag car drivers? Athletes?
 
If you have to ask, probably not, but then again....Who the hell cares? I mean, really. I don't.
 
Ford 222 said:
No. Texas Oilfield workers in August put in 12 hours plus in brutal heat working near hot combustion engines. I promis their heart rates are up for long durations. And they aren't having fun and paid way less. Lose pounds of water too in a shift. Make them athletes?
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I respect guys with jobs like this and other warehouses more than race car drivers.
 
I once decided to weigh myself before and after an all day service shift at my restaurant...I lost 6 pounds being on my feet in the 90 degree kitchen all day. Cooks are athletes!!!

In all seriousness, I love the data. But heartrate doesn't mean everything. Hook a heart rate monitor up to a gamer playing some spooky game in a dark room for 3 hours and I'm sure it'll be somewhat comparable. My fitbit shows an average heartrate of 130 BMP when I was in a rush cooking food in front of a broiler...

This is a goofy ass debate for those who want racing to be compared to football or hockey or what have you. I don't quite care, I know that racing is better than football ;)
 
Ford 222 said:
No. Texas Oilfield workers in August put in 12 hours plus in brutal heat working near hot combustion engines. I promis their heart rates are up for long durations. And they aren't having fun and paid way less. Lose pounds of water too in a shift. Make them athletes?
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Those guys are tough.

The G-loads on the rigs are off the scale.
 
JohnHill said:
I respect guys with jobs like this and other warehouses more than race car drivers.
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Yeah ... and the guys that set pins at the bowling alley before automation took their jobs.

The bravery ...
 
aunty dive said:
Those guys are tough.

The G-loads on the rigs are off the scale.
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Oh Ok so fighter pilots are athletes too. And their competition is REAL with REAL G-Loads. High HR and all so they HAVE to be athletes. I bet they break sweats too.

This is becoming comical...
 
Ford 222 said:
Oh Ok so fighter pilots are athletes too. And their competition is REAL with REAL G-Loads. High HR and all so they HAVE to be athletes. I bet they break sweats too.

This is becoming comical...
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Thats kinda how I feel towards this... I wouldn't call race car drivers athletes, although its well documented what they do is really challenging and takes tons of skill...

If you give these guys the tag of "athlete", then you might as well go the route you're saying and look at everyone who breaks a sweat in a given day...

As Carl Edwards said many times in his days "guys, this is a dream job... we're paid to drive race cars..." kinda says it all.
 
Not athletes in the sense that a pro bicycle racer is an athlete but athletes none the less. They have a tough job that wears on the mind as well as the body. Most of the guys ( and gal) out there seem to be fairly trim and fit IMO


BTW ........ no photos of Mike Harmon will be needed ......... I did say "most"
 
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