Read the opposing arguments from Optimist Prime and Loyal Homer.
Growing less than an hour away from a major race track, I have always been surrounded by NASCAR. From local racing festivals, to NASCAR themed amusement park rides, to professional baseball teams named in honor or NASCAR greats, racing seems to permeate life in my part of the country. With the new NASCAR Hall of Fame now in my backyard it seems I could not have picked a more NASCAR friendly area to live in. Yet, despite my close proximity to all things NASCAR, I never really embraced it.
In fact I have never been to a race or even watched one in its entirety on TV. It’s fair to wonder how NASCAR fandom eludes me. Part of the reason may be my hang-ups over the status of the activity in general. Much of the public, myself included, does not know exactly what to make of NASCAR.
Is it a sport? Is it just a unique high speed form of entertainment? Is it both? With so many questions and so few answers, I turned to my friends here at The Sports Debates for help, and Loyal Homer and Optimist Prime were more than happy to provide their take on the issue.
Loyal Homer took the affirmative side declaring NASCAR was indeed a sport. He began his case by clearly defining the term “sport” as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.” While I may not buy Loyal Homer’s argument that NASCAR drivers are world class athletes, I recognize that a similar critique could be made of participants of my favorite sport – baseball. The bodies of players like Prince Fielder, David Ortiz, and my namesake Babe Ruth were not exactly modeled after Michelangelo’s David, but no one can doubt they are among the most skilled batters in baseball. And with that in mind I recognize that the precision, timing, vision, and focus that NASCAR drivers display qualify them as extremely skilled. And similarly, there is no denying that NASCAR is extremely competitive. Drivers risk life and limb in pursuit of winning each race. They drive, they wreck, and sometimes even cheat in pursuit of the all important win.
So, skilled? Check. Competitive? Check. It looks like Loyal Homer is building a solid case. But Optimist Prime did not just pull over and let Loyal Homer cruise to the victory, he brought his own argument to the track as well.
Optimist Prime’s argument focused on questioning the validity of NACAR. He claimed that “races are manipulated, in a way to send the fans home happy.” He focuses much of his argument on phantom debris cautions, which he felt excessively interfere with the outcome of races. While I do not necessarily subscribe to the theory myself, I understand where meddling with the officiating of a race in attempt to make it more interesting would undermine its integrity. And a sport without integrity can hardly be counted as a sport for long.
But in contrast to Optimist Prime’s statements, other sports – which have an undisputed status as legitimate – have sometimes intervened into the competitive nature of the game to increase the drama and appeal of the game. In baseball, better hitters sometimes seem to be afforded wider strikes zones than their less proven counterparts, possibly because baseball depends on the thrill of the long ball. In ultimate fighting, champions and proven veterans are given more time to work their way out of compromising position when a lesser contenders fight may have already been stopped. From time to time even basketball referees seem to ignore blatant fouls or call miniscule violation in close contests to add to the drama of the game. While these criticisms fall more in line with the ravings of conspiracy theorists than well documented analysis, it still goes to show that similar questionable calls are frequently second guessed in other main stream sports without invalidating those competitive activities status as sports.
Although no one can deny NASCAR’s national and international appeal, as well as its profitability, there are many other arguments against its status as a sport that one could have made. Optimist Prime could have criticized NASCAR’s reliance on machine rather than muscle for the substance of its competition, or he could have questioned the over-commercialized nature of racing where the competitors more closely resemble billboard advertisements than they do athletes. But, alas he did not. And so, it is because Loyal Homer provided evidence that NASCAR met the minimum competencies for qualifying as a sport (skill and competitiveness), and Optimist Prime failed to negate that argument, I award this victory to Loyal Homer.
Loyal Homer, I believe a victory lap is in order.
Posted by Sports Geek 
