After last night’s epic crash, in which NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya slammed into a truck carrying 200 gallons of jet fuel, the Daytona 500 caught on like wildfire across the social media world.
One of the topics brought up during the over 2 hour race delay, was that of, are NASCAR drivers considered athletes?
Of course to the drivers themselves they consider themselves right up there with any other professional athlete. However, the average fan looks at their argument and says, how can they argue this when they’re not skying high for an alley-oop dunk, or making a diving stop in the hole between shortstop and second base? Or even returning a kickoff for a touchdown in football?
To me this makes perfect sense, exactly how could someone who drives 200 MPH around the same circular track consider themselves athletic?
To answer that, I looked into the type of endurance and skill set these drivers have to put their body through in order to perform on the track.
For instance, NASCAR drivers are constantly cruising around a slim track at a pace of 200 MPH where in a split second they could make the slightest malfunction in their turn and end not only their race, but also their lives.
According to a previous NASCAR article from USA Today, these split second decisions typically last about 1/3 of an eye blink.
Much is the same when it comes to basketball for example, not so much in risking their lives, but professional basketball players must make similar split second decisions. For example, a guard drives the lane and waits until the last possible second to see if the defense will collapse on him. This causes the player with the ball to make a split second decision as to if he should pass the ball off to a teammate or try taking the shot himself.
Or take the pit crew for example in NASCAR, as they carry the “coaching load,” much like that of a baseball coaching staff.
The pit crew is in charge of track strategy, keeping their drivers focused, maintenance of their vehicles, and so much more behind the scenes work the average fan fails to recognize.
Same deal in professional baseball where a manager serves as the leader of the baseball “pit crew.” Not to mention he has his trainers to keep players healthy, bench coaches to talk strategy, and also his scouts to see where the team is headed in the long run.
Furthermore, I came across a ridiculous statistic about NASCAR drivers enduring 120 degree temperatures within the cockpit of the car for multiple hours. This something that never happens to any other sports program for that long of a time.
If that isn’t enough to convince you that NASCAR drivers should be considered athletes, maybe this will.
In order to survive and endure an entire NASCAR season, drivers build muscle mass by lifting weights and performing constant cardiovascular workouts in order to help with the flow of oxygen, which lessens during races.
So for those of you out there still doubting the athletic ability of NASCAR drivers, maybe you should start by completing the off season workouts done by those drivers. Then maybe you can test your own endurance come race day.
