Is The Car The Athlete?

There’s the age old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Everyone’s heard it, and everyone has an opinion. Around these parts, a specific age-old question can spark a greater debate than “Who do you got on your Mount Rushmore of NASCAR?” What’s that question? I’ll tell you, but be prepared to have strong feelings about your position. Who is the athlete, the driver, or the car? And, of course, the follow-up for those with some extra cynicism in their cereal will argue neither, and ignorantly say NASCAR is not a sport, unlike our position, a lifestyle. But for the sake of our debate, who’s the athlete, the driver, or the car?

I listened to a recent interview in which a driver said, "We aren’t athletes as much as we are thrill seekers," and like clockwork, it sparked the debate in my head again. Who is the athlete? The driver or the car?

Let’s start at the beginning: An athlete is defined as the following: 1. a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina. 2. : an animal (such as a horse or a dog) that competes in races or other sporting events or has qualities (such as stamina and agility) suggestive of a human athlete.

First up, the driver.

Professional drivers need extraordinary physical and mental stamina to compete in major racing series such as NASCAR. Interestingly, data shows that the metabolic demands of auto racing and basketball are similar.

Race car drivers face unique challenges that require strength, endurance, and hand-eye coordination. The physical effort of driving a race car is much greater than that of driving your standard vehicle. Turning and braking require more force due to the high speeds and the unique engineering of race cars. Drivers control the vehicle by constantly engaging the muscles of the arms, upper body, and legs. A study by the University of Florida and Michigan State University (in collaboration with NASCAR) showed that after being hooked up to sensors to track the stresses and strains drivers endured during a race, they needed to generate 35 pounds of force to steer and 135 pounds of force to brake. Add to that the length of the race, and there is no doubt it would be considered an active workout. Drivers undergo rigorous training to strengthen key muscle groups in the neck, upper body, and legs while working to improve their cardiovascular fitness.

Now, let’s talk about the heat. Heat is also a major challenge for driver athletes. Like any exercise, driving a race car causes the body to generate metabolic heat. In most sports, athletes wear lightweight clothes that promote cooling by convection and sweat evaporation.

Not so in racing. The safety gear worn during competition to protect against fire in case of a crash traps the driver's body heat. The gear includes a long fireproof undershirt and underpants, a full-body fire suit, socks and driving shoes, gloves, a fireproof balaclava, and a full-face helmet with a closed eye shield.

To make matters worse, drivers compete in what’s essentially a moving oven. The race car engine, exhaust, brakes, and tires generate a massive amount of heat. These sources heat the cockpit and the driver, especially in cars with roofs like stock cars. In summer, cockpit temperatures can exceed 135 degrees, leading to profuse sweating, dehydration, and even heatstroke.

Forget about traditional air conditioning; again, this is not your daily driver. Instead, technologies used to combat the heat include hoses that bring fresh air into driver helmets and cool shirts drivers wear. In-car drink systems can also provide fluids for re-hydration.

Drivers and other endurance athletes metabolize oxygen to power their muscles and regulate body temperature. Comparing data across sports, Michigan State University researchers found that the metabolic demands of auto racing are similar to high-intensity sports such as soccer, boxing, and basketball. Delivering more oxygen to the driver’s body puts stress on the heart. Drivers often maintain near-maximal heart rates while racing for hours at a time. Their research ultimately stated that the simulation of NASCAR in an average race was comparable to two full NBA games simultaneously!

There is no doubt that the research proves that this is a full athletic event for the driver. The stamina, endurance, use of physical force, conditions, and skill would make the driver an athlete.

But then the questions creep in: without the car, there would be no driver. And if the car is not in tip-top shape, all the stamina, endurance, use of physical force, and skill can’t win you a race. The car, at its core, may be putting in more work than the driver. The work put into said car is equivalent to the living, breathing example of a horse, who, in horse racing, is deemed an athlete. See the definition we started with! Can the same be true for vehicles? Particularly true with this generation of cars, in my personal opinion. But let’s break it down.

NASCAR teams build and test their cars in a highly regulated environment, starting with a standardized chassis and body, then focusing on engine, suspension, and aerodynamic adjustments while adhering to strict NASCAR rules and undergoing rigorous pre and post-race inspections. These are highly skilled engineers- mad scientists, if you will. NASCAR teams seek mechanical and aerospace-trained engineers for these critical positions during hiring. The car is, in fact, a robot of sorts that can dictate the trajectory of the race.

In 2013, Jeff Gordon said the car is "way, way more important" and estimated drivers are only 20% of the success equation. Kasey Kahne named the exact same percentage in that same interview. This debate was particularly a hot topic of discussion when Jimmie Johnson was on a tear for back to back to back to back (need I keep going?) championships. Was it the driver, or was it the car?

If the driver were the athlete, wouldn’t that mean that you could take a driver and put them in the car and expect the same result? Suppose you use the most recent example, when Joey Logano drove the 15 car [in Xfinity Series] to test the theory of the car not being up to snuff, in the height of the Hailie Deegan saga. Did he go out there guns blazing? It left a lot of questions unanswered for the sake of this debate. If we bring it back to the Jimmie Johnson days, "He's the A in the garage," Brad Keselowski said of another driver. "Now, he might have had B cars, I don't know. Maybe Jimmie is a B, and he has A cars." When the driver, car, and luck are factored in, even the drivers themselves are unsure for what percentage they are responsible. Wouldn’t the most responsible party of the performance be the athlete?

Maybe it’s my rookie brain, but I’m still stumped. 

So I’ll leave it up to you: is the driver the athlete, or is it the car? Or plot twist is it the pit crew? Or maybe it’s all of the above. Can there be more than one? A debate that will age like fine wine and continue in racing circles for decades to come.