Evil Wordsmith

Ask most people what they want in a dream car and you’ll hear something like Ferrari or Lamborghini or Rolls Royce.  Some kids may mention monster trucks.  Here’s what I want.  I want this:

Mounted something like this:

With a joystick mounted close so I can aim and fire it.  No more traffic jams for me…  And for my redneck buddies out there who think this gun might not be big enough, take a look at the page where I found it: http://www.orsm.net/text/a10-thunderbolt.php.  Scroll to the bottom for an idea of how big it is.

E.W.

Oh and I think I need eye and ear protection.

It’s a continual question from those who don’t know racing and don’t take the time to learn:
Is Nascar A Sport? Are Nascar Drivers Athletes?

Every year some ’sports writer’ or newspaper columnist voices the question and then attempts to answer it by saying Nascar is just a southern activity attended by beer drinking rednecks. They profess to know more than the millions of fans who watch their favorite driver, team and races by claiming that Nascar isn’t a sport and the drivers aren’t athletes. “All they do is make left turns and waste gas” is their typical line.

Sadly their rhetoric is voiced by the millions of people who don’t have a clue what racing is about. Add to that the age of Twitter and Facebook which gives a platform to those people  to degrade and put down anyone who does like Nascar racing. After a while it does get annoying and fans of Nascar sometimes feel the need or desire to respond to these questions. We all know it falls on deaf ears and rarely makes a difference.

But let’s try to rise above the fray and actually answer the questions from an academic perspective.

According to Webster’s, the word Sports is defined as:
1a. a source of diversion, recreation
1b. a physical activity engaged in for pleasure
3a. something tossed or driven about in or as if in play.

By definition Nascar is a sport. It is a source of diversion for those who love to watch racing. For drivers, crews and owners it is something they do and enjoy doing. We can even say they do it for pleasure as many of them started racing not for the big pay checks, but as kids who spent their weekends with Mom and Dad doing something they enjoyed doing. And it’s definitely something that is driven about.

So let’s put this question to rest once and for all. Nascar racing IS a sport!

Next question, are there athletes in Nascar? I ask this question this way to include the crews who change 4 tires and fill a car with fuel in less than 15 seconds. Most often less than 13 seconds. I’d like to see the local mechanic at Pep-Boys do that. These guys are most definitely athletes. Anyone who says they’re not is welcome to duplicate what a pit crew does in the same amount of time in their own driveway on their own car. Good luck, you’ll need it.

Let’s get more scientific about the question though. In 2005 CNN sent Sanjay Gupta to Nascar to study the affects of racing on the average driver. You can review the transcript yourself @ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/20/i_ins.01.html

Their results finally proved what every Nascar fan already knew….Yes Nascar Drivers are athletes.

Now let’s highlight a few things from that show. Dr. Gupta followed Rusty Wallace who was driving the #2 Miller Light at the Pennsylvania 500, that’s 500 miles of racing for those non-race fans. Here’s what CNN discovered the average race driver will experience in his car.

1. The average race goes 3 hours and 45 minutes.
2. During that time a driver endures temperatures in the car over 100 degrees.
3. Temperatures near the floorboards reach nearer to 170 degrees. This is why drivers wear protective gear on their feet to avoid melting of their shoes (something that happened to old racers like Richard Petty) and to prevent burns on their feet and heals.
4. At this track, drivers will travel very near the length of a football field every second.
5. They will experience G-forces similar to the space shuttle on lift off. That means drivers are pulled sideways on the corners with the same force as an astronaut is pushed down on a shuttle take off.

Dr. Steve Olvey from the University of Miami is asked “Are racecar drivers athletes?” Absolutely! Dr. Olvey fitted several drivers in a study of physical effects and changes on racecar drivers during all those left turns. He discovered the stresses put on them is equivalent to a very fit Olympic long distance swimmer, marathon runner or even a person playing professional basketball.

Dr. Jack Stark a Psychologist adds to that with a study on anticipatory timing. This is the mental dexterity that is needed by an athlete to anticipate reactions during a game, or in this case a race. Maneuvering in traffic at 180 mph or more requires a driver to have the same anticipation as a goalie or professional quarterback. With less than a second to review conditions and make decisions, it puts their reactions to the test for nearly 4 hours without a break.

Stark says, in football you go hard for 15 seconds and rest for 30 or 40. Basketball you have time outs. Add to that in hockey, a goalie gets a short break each time the puck is driven down the ice to the other teams neat. In Nascar, you can’t raise your hand and take a time out.

Dr. Gupta shares results of research that shows Nascar drivers sweat as much as a football player at practice. They can lose 3% of body weight in sweat, that’s about 5 lbs for each race. If they don’t replenish those fluids during the race, their concentration and reflexes will start declining.

Dr. Stark believes the number one thing that strikes you about Nascar drivers that you will find in other athletes who participate in dangerous sports is their ability to face fear. The mental toughness to block fear and potential life threatening hazards out of their mind each time they get into a car is another sign of mental strength.

That’s a bigger issue than some might realize. During a crash the physical stresses that a Driver goes through can triple in an instant. Jerry Nadeau’s crash at Richmond is a good example. Nadeau spun on the track and hit the wall with a force of 128 Gs, that’s 128 times the force of gravity. The hardest impact recorded by Nascar since the inclusion of black boxes in the car starting in 2001. The result of that crash caused a partial collapse of Nadeau’s lung, fractured his left shoulder blade, insured his ribs and gave him a serious head injury.

Nadeau reported “My body stopped and my brain didn’t. My brain lapped the side of my skull.” That means the force of the crash was so great that it caused tearing inside Nadeau’s brain. 20 days later Nadeau regained consciousness. Fans know that Nascar has made leaps and great strides to make racing safer to protect drivers and crews from harm. The Hans device and safer barrier walls all help to minimize the impact of cars during crashes. And so far those improvements have indeed made things a lot better for drivers during an incident on the track.

But they do nothing for what happens to a driver while sitting in the car, and driving around the track during a race. Dr. Gupta took the opportunity to go through the Richard Petty Driving Experience. He donned a racing fire suit, got into a car and began reporting on the affects.
1. Just sitting in the car waiting his turn to get onto the track his heart rate was up, as was his breathing and he hadn’t even started driving yet.
2. His body temperature raised to that of a fever, between 101 and 102.
3. After the second minute of driving his heart rate jumped from 88 beats per minute to 130.
4. His metabolic rate (how much oxygen is consumed), was four times more than his resting metabolic activity. That means he used four times as much oxygen as when he’s just sitting in a chair and not doing anything.

Dr. Patrick Jacobs at the University of Miami studies Racecar drivers and their physical condition. Dr. Gupta asked him would you describe Nascar as a physically challenging activity? Dr. Jacobs replies: “Most undoubtedly.  Very challenging in terms of physical fitness, what they have to face.”

And we can put this one to rest as well -  Nascar Race Drivers ARE athletes!

Anyone who says Nascar drivers aren’t athletes really don’t understand racing and the stress it puts on the physical body. This isn’t taking a 10 minute trip the local market for a pack of beer. It’s not even close to the energy the average person expends driving on a 500 mile trip. But if you have taken such a trip you know you feel tired when you get to your destination. Now imagine that with the G-forces a race driver experiences, in the heat and with the expanded mental acuity they go through for 4 hours.

It’s easy to put down drivers for sitting in a car when you don’t have a real idea of what that entails. And perhaps that’s what angers or annoys Nascar fans the most. The comments are made out of not knowing and taking the time to find out. Maybe this will help some gain an understanding of what our favorite drivers go through each time the announcement comes for “Gentleman Start Your Engines”!

Long live Nascar! Go Tony #14, Ryan #39, Dale Jr. #88 and Joey #20!

We’re a little late in posting the results of our 2009 NFL Season picks. But better late than never.

The little prince and I were very excited to see the Saints win the Superbowl. We both picked them to win and it ended our season on a high note. The prince wasn’t interested in how he did for the year, which is probably good since he didn’t pick the first several weeks. But I didn’t do so badly. A total of 173 wins out of 267 games. That’s only 94 picks lost. Woohoo. 

Here’s the pick:

Well, here it is, a chance for the Ain’ts to make history and earn the name Saints by finally winning a Superbowl. Apparently, I’m going to miss it.

I’d like to bitch about Comcast, well I am going to bitch about them, but it’s not really their fault this time. On the best of days it takes them forever to get their equipment repaired. Today is Sunday. Today is the day after Mother Earth put a fresh foot plus of new snow on top of a heavy coating of sleet, and the three inches of snow left over from the fifteen inches of snow from last week. If we are lucky, we might get to see the Daytona race next weekend.

So, I will likely try to watch the football game online, probably in vain. It appears that the NFL is pretty sure that no one on dial-up would ever visit their site. I don’t have flash enabled and the site still takes nearly five minutes to come up to a usable form. I’ve never been on there long enough to find out how long the whole thing takes, it always seems to still be loading by the time I’m finished looking at the scores.

Why don’t you have broadband you ask? Well, there is only one “broadband” provider here… you guessed it, Comcast! And just to spread the rant around, I haven’t forgotten about the FIOS from Verizon that will “be installed here real soon, sometime in 2008.”

I guess I should count myself lucky since we were the last house on the power line who still had power all night. And I do mean last house, the next door neighbor and everyone else west of me were out. The only light on the far side of the lake was one coming from what sounded like a distant generator.

And I suspect that all that light out at the end of my driveway when I went to bed was a Rappahannock Electric crew working to change that. And on the topic of utility bitching, let me say that I have never had a bad experience with Rappahannock. When Isabelle came bowling-for-people here the power was out less than twelve hours. When one of the local squirrels committed suicide without completely knocking out the power, the crew went door to door warning us that they would be cutting power for a few minutes for the repair to give us time to get computers shut down safely. They even provide discounts on our prescription medicines.

E.W.

And for those of you who are thinking of me as a bitchy-little-girl, bitching is cathartic if you have faith in the Universe. I got the best laugh ever just as I finished this post. The cable came back on right as I typed the period on the last sentence. What was on? A Comcast commercial… Nice work and nice timing.

Tonight is the Pro Bowl in Florida and the Prince started talking about his pick for the Super Bowl. We talked about the strength of the Colts and their amazing season. But we also talked about the 2 games they threw at the end of the season and how un-sportsman like that was. We talked about New Orleans never being in a Super Bowl before and how a win would give a boost to the heart and soul of that still devastated town.

Because of the thrown games, we don’t think the Colts “deserve” to win the Super Bowl. Both teams have a shot at winning. The Colts have the skill and strength on the field. But the Prince and I think the Saints also have the talent and skill, but they also have more heart and desire for the win. That is an edge that no amount of skill can beat. So we’re both going with the New Orleans Saints to win Super Bowl XLIV!!