The Allure of Auto Racing

I think since the invention of the automobile there has been a certain segment of the human race that has always wondered if their car was faster than someone else's. Humankind has always enjoyed racing in one form or another. Whether it is on foot or in a vehicle, human nature probably has some instinctive impulse which encourages competition and the desire to be first. Now some people do still wonder why auto racing (in whatever iteration... Formula 1, NASCAR, LeMans series) is as appealing as it is. Despite being a fan of racing (Formula 1 more than any of the others these days) I am at a loss to explain the appeal myself.

One thing that does kind of make sense to me the more I think about it is the desire on the part of many to see crashes. Now I know it sounds rather sick or sadistic but I think it's true. In the case of NASCAR you have cars going around in circles (most of the time except for road courses) for several hours and although there is a certain strategy in the seeminly random circling, if there are no crashes or no problems sure no one will complain but some of the fan base will undoubtedly feel... cheated maybe? I mean let's face it, with the speed some of these cars attain these days it's not surprising that the accidents that do occur are as spectacular as they are. Take the example of Carl Edwards crash this past weekend at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend.

The race had been proceeding in more or less a normal manner when Carl Edwards's car was tapped from behind causing him to spin out of control, he was then bumped again by another car that was following him and that was enough to send his car spinning skyward and slamming into the fence surrounding the track thankfully limiting injuries to the spectators (only about 7 to 8 people in the stands were actually injured). Edwards himself was able to walk away despite the horrific nature of the crash; that itself is a testament to the continued improvement in driver safety over the past so many years. But is this safety ever going to be enough?

A few years ago the governing board of NASCAR instituted what is known as restrictor plate racing which is basically a way to limit the top end speed of the racecars. Now one of the linchpins of NASCAR was that the engines and cars were supposed to more or less be 'stock' (hence the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing -- NASCAR) and differences came down to engine design and car aerodynamics. What happened then was that some teams were very fast and others were very slow with variations in between and the result was that some fan favorite drivers were left behind since the team they raced for couldn't keep up or didn't have as much money as others.

So to make things a bit more 'stock' the restrictor plate was meant to slow cars down (also termed for safety) but what happened then was that races began to become wild melees in which cars were bunched closely together, often dangerously so. The result, more crashes which seemed to draw in more viewership. Now perhaps that's speculation on my part and the parts of other viewers of racing but it's true. And the scary thing is that people don't seem to realize that this is a real danger to the drivers. Take the case of the Formula 1 race in the United States at Indianapolis a few years ago. Drivers using Michelin tires were driving them to the limits and at a very high speed track like Indianapolis (where speeds get close to 300 MPH at times) tires were bursting which resulted in spectacular crashes in practice! In practice!

The teams most directly affected protested vehemently and called for delays or at least changes in track design to make it a bit safer which was immediately poo-poohed by the governing boards. Drivers were told to 'slow down' in dangerous sections of the track. Now honestly I don't know what racing related person would consider slowing down when your income depends on winning or at least placing higher. The drivers who didn't get the changes they wanted then sat out the race. The fans booed and the race was ultimately dropped from the schedule in subsequent years (it has yet to return) but what amazed me was the fact that people were complaining about the fact that the racers didn't race. Is it any wonder when they ran a very good chance of ending up in a wall at 200+ MPH or even worse?

I think ultimately that incident and this incident on Sunday shows me that truly part of the appeal of racing is the desire to see fast moving objects suddenly and quite violently come to a halt through crashes like those that you see in the movies. I think what we tend to forget though in such cases is that there are actual human beings in these cars and they aren't mindless machines going around and around. People can and do get hurt and implementing rules meant to encourage 'more passing' or 'more racing' means that there's more chance of being involved in a major accident. On the heels of Carl Edward's crash I'm sure there's going to be a bump in viewership of the next NASCAR race this weekend.