88 replies to this topic

[jonpollak]

Well said EB... We were predisposed to be enthralled.

[scheivlak]

Cycling (road cycling specifically) I see as far too dangerous and for no good reason. Racing down mountain rough roads at 80+ kph without the benefit of any protective barriers whatsoever, has resulted in far too many deaths. 

Of course any death is too much but I have to ask you: do you have the statistics to back this up?

[scheivlak]

 

Didn't feel that way in October 2011 though.

Neither did I after being there in Zandvoort in 1970 and 1973. I'll never forget 1973 and it made me literally sick to my stomach.

 

There is a subtle difference between risk and danger.

 

You don't want somebody to get hurt.

But you want them to be really tested. 

 

There lies the challenge.

[HeadFirst]

Of course any death is too much but I have to ask you: do you have the statistics to back this up?

 

Of course I do. https://en.wikipedia...d_during_a_race That list is somewhat all-inclusive (includes training accidents), but I think you'll get the point. This one is a little more tipped to pro road-racing only http://velonews.comp...-cycling_172004 Hope the links work.

[scheivlak]

Of course I do. https://en.wikipedia...d_during_a_race That list is somewhat all-inclusive (includes training accidents), but I think you'll get the point. This one is a little more tipped to pro road-racing only http://velonews.comp...-cycling_172004 Hope the links work.

So hardly anyone died in a 80+ km/h descent  as you suggested!

Edited by scheivlak, 30 June 2015 - 23:09.

[917k]

The IRL did crazy, blood-curdling danger from 1999 to 2008 and crowd sizes and viewers dropped every year. The ''new'' ICS does some of the same [on ovals] and the results are even worse.

 

So, for the US at least, and for open-wheelers, I would have to say no.

[HeadFirst]

So hardly anyone who died in a 80+ km/h descent  as you suggested!

 

 

So hardly anyone who died in a 80+ km/h descent  as you suggested!

 

Only 2 out of 5 pro racers who died since 1995 did so on high speed descents. What is your point?

[scheivlak]

Only 2 out of 5 pro racers who died since 1995 did so on high speed descents. What is your point?

 

That's 1 in 10 years. Do you have any idea how many professional (just to limit the numbers) cycling events are taking place every year? And how many cyclists are taking part in every race? (hint: quite a lot more than in any F1 or even WEC race)

Edited by scheivlak, 30 June 2015 - 23:23.

[ardbeg]

Yes, it's the draw. But we all put the "danger line" at different places. It's the danger that makes us drive faster and it is the danger that draws to watch other drive faster. That is not the same as saying we want accidents, that we want anyone to get hurt. When I drive fast, I do not want to get hurt. I want to feel the thrill. The thrill increases with danger.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Risk, not danger

 

Risk is the chance you could hit a wall and have a spectacular crash. Danger is the risk that you get carried away from it in a body bag.

 

You can have a lot of risk in racing without much danger. Formula 1 tries to eliminate risk(you can't hit anything) and Indycar tries to eliminate danger(you'll hit something, hard, but you'll get arguably the best medical care in motorsports and immediately).

 

It's because of risk, not danger, that I have a casual racing friend fan that delights in seeing the latest clip of a Sato Shunt© on my phone.

 

No one wants to see injuries. And while we don't 'watch for the crashes' there is a certain, well, thrill in seeing an accident live. Even the most basic oval crash in Indycar, in person, is an image and particular a sound you don't soon forget.

 

We want to be amazed by the incident but also that the guy(or gal) got out of it immediately and wanted to go again.

In my opinion, making that distinction is taking the easy way out.  Massive crashes are spectacular precisely because there is always the possibility that the consequences are going to be lasting.  Otherwise crashes would be the same as spinning off into the gravel trap.

[ch103]

Sir Jackie Stewart fought long and hard to make F1 a safer sport, so I disagree with the premise that danger and fatalities are the lure.  Drivers don't need to risk their lives to be considered the greatest in the world. 

 

As race fans, we would have a better world if Rindt, Senna, Earnhardt, Wheldon, Moore and many others were still with us.  Even it if that means the quality of the "draw" suffers.

[HP]

When i was a kid I was in awe of what they were doing. The control at the speed they were doing and having to deal with the fact that mistakes could be possibly fatal.

 

That mistakes are less fatal is welcome to me, but taking away challenges not.

 

One issue for me however is that modern F1 cars leave less opportunities to make minor mistakes and the driver using his skills to make up for it. I remember a scene (probably Monza) where a driver got his car on the grass, kept the car going in the right direction, getting back on track and then at the end of the straight completing an overtake. Despite the mishap, the slowing down, still an oveertake. Bravo!. These days, the drivers might get punished for leaving the track, mind you should he be able to still pull off an overtake has to give back position, else there is yet another penalty. However, most likely with the current aero, there was no way he could make a pass anyway, except with DRS.

 

To me the design of F1 cars went into a wrong direction with the attempt to stay the pinnacle of single seater open-wheel racing. Proper design is to take off as much unnecessary stuff as possible. Instead F1 added more aero gimmicks, these days they added a very complex engine. The end effect is exactly as anywhere with a flawed design. It does it's job, it might even make people "wow" when they see it first, because someone threw in the line "state of art", but using and watching such a flawed tool is not much fun in the long run. Also I don't think it's good design to produce cars where overtaking is near impossible. When they are in front it's fine, the proper show off, but when even Hamilton, who is one of the best overtakers in the current line-up, resigned to stay behind a Ferrari that is substantially slower than the Mercedes, then it's time to redesign things.

 

Simpler cars will probably make for better racing. They still can be "state of the art". It's also cheaper, but what matters is that racing becomes more exciting again.

 

Honestly, who thought out the idea the the more complex the cars, the more likely people will get exited? Give me a choice of a complex modern car or the same, more basic model. I'd choose the basic model and I'd be on a mission to show that I can beat the racers using the pimped up car. That's a challenge I'd cherish and would thrive on. In other words, the driver matters more again. And I'd like to  think I'm not alone with that sentiment. I don't need to see F1 cars that look like they are mounted on rails.

[scheivlak]

  Massive crashes are spectacular precisely because there is always the possibility that the consequences are going to be lasting.  

Not for me, and I wonder if I'm alone in this.

 

For me, massive crashes (post circa 1982!) are spectacular because my first reaction is "Nice fireworks, but thank goodness I guess everybody will be OK". 

 

I vividly remember how stunned I was about Roland Ratzenberger's fatal crash. "C'mon! This can't be true! I thought I saw him move....."

[HP]

Not for me, and I wonder if I'm alone in this.

 

For me, massive crashes (post circa 1982!) are spectacular because my first reaction is "Nice fireworks, but thank goodness I guess everybody will be OK". 

 

I vividly remember how stunned I was about Roland Ratzenberger's fatal crash. "C'mon! This can't be true! I thought I saw him move....."

You're not alone.

[Otaku]

For me it's not danger, it's challenge. The problem with that is that most of the times, challenge and danger go together. You try to make the racing safer by lowering the danger, but you also end up lowering the challenge and making everything duller (almost everything post 1994 is an example of this). It is super difficult (and sometimes impossible) to lower the danger while maintaining the challenge.

[Henri Greuter]

I wonder if maybe we need to change the word danger for another word.

Speed.

 

On Indycar forums and over here there is a lot of writing that indicates tha very few writers will accept a mojor slowing down of the cars. there is more talk about the cars being "too slow"

A number of dangers will become less is speeds are reduced, whatever manner they achieve it while it will increase other dangers instead.

Take away lots of aero and thus downforce and it will reduce cornerspeeds. It reduces the chance on a high speed crash, yet increases the chance for crashing out of the corner because of having gone too fast.

 

Sacrifice speed for less danger? I'm pretty sure that this suggestion will get little to no support.

The "draw for danger", I think it is mostly a result of the "need for speed". A need that, as it appears to me, is posessed by a large majority among race fans.

 

Henri

Edited by Henri Greuter, 01 July 2015 - 07:50.

[Henri Greuter]

I wonder if maybe we need to change the word danger for another word.

Speed.

 

On Indycar forums and over here there is a lot of writing that indicates tha very few writers will accept a mojor slowing down of the cars. There is more talk (if not actually complains) about the cars being "too slow"

A number of dangers will become less is speeds are reduced, whatever manner they achieve it while it will increase other dangers instead.

Take away lots of aero and thus downforce and it will reduce cornerspeeds. It reduces the chance on a high speed crash, yet increases the chance for crashing out of the corner because of having gone too fast.

 

Sacrifice speed for less danger? I'm pretty sure that this suggestion will get little to no support.

The "draw for danger", I think it is mostly a result of the "need for speed". A need that, as it appears to me, is posessed by a large majority among race fans.

 

Henri

[redreni]

 Redrini:

"It's not that the danger was a draw in and of itself, it's more that the measures that have been taken to mitigate the sport's inherent risks haven't always been made in a way that preserves sporting integrity and the physical and mental challenge of the competition."

Huh? Danger isn't a draw but what has been done to nullify it you don't agree with. Instead we should make it more dangerous for sporting reasons (track limits). And also nostalgic reasons (open cockpit).

It seems to me like you just cannot bring yourself to admit that danger is a draw. I want faster cars purely for sporting reasons, but I can admit that it would add excitement from the danger element that it brings with it also. And that that would most likely be a draw for the general public.

 

I'd recommend you go and read one of the many threads about track limits. If we still raced on tracks as per their 1990 configuration, there would be a number of different consequences to this, most of them good, and one bad.

 

First, the track limit enforcement problem and the issue of unfairness when the rules are enforced sporadically and inconsistently, would all but disappear.

 

Second, drivers would be rewarded for being able to drive consistent lines more than they are at the moment, which many of us would regard as a good thing.

 

Third, problems of cars being launched over kerbs, digging into uneven grass surfaces, and generally having worse accidents than they do at the moment, would also be exacerbated, which is why we can't go back. I realise that and I'm not arguing that we should go back. That's why I think sporting factors should be taken into consideration before changes are made, because once you've changed a corner for safety reasons, you can't then go back and make it more dangerous again for sporting reasons.

 

Now, if you can't see that measures taken to improve safety also have other consequences, and that it is possible to be in favour of the improved safety standards but still find some of the other consequences regrettable, then I don't know what else I can tell you. I really don't mind what you think my reasons are for holding the views that I do. If you prefer to believe that I like seeing people being injured or killed, go right ahead. I can only tell you what I think.

[redreni]

The IRL did crazy, blood-curdling danger from 1999 to 2008 and crowd sizes and viewers dropped every year. The ''new'' ICS does some of the same [on ovals] and the results are even worse.

 

So, for the US at least, and for open-wheelers, I would have to say no.

 

And people forget that in the 50s, 60s and 70s, when F1 was a scene of regular carnage and you needed to live a charmed life in order to put any kind of career together, it was tiny compared to what it is today. In fact, up until the last few years, there's been a fairly linear, fairly strong correlation, in F1 at least, between safety and popularity. There seems to be no correlation between danger and popularity.

 

Nothing ruins the narrative of a WDC battle quite like one of the main protagonists being eliminated with career-ending injuries part-way through.

[ardbeg]

Imagine someone is joggling cucumbers. He, or she, might be good at it and you think "cool". Then replace, in your imagination, the cucumbers with sharp knifes. Will the challenge change significantly? Not really. But the attention from the audience certainly would. As well as the attention and concentration of the joggler. That is the thing, danger draws things closer to the edge. I would watch the joggler with the knifes. I would also watch someone trying to hit an apple on someone’s head with cucumber. But if they then switched to knifes I would leave. Everyone has their own limit, but danger draws.

[Tapz63]

If you prefer to believe that I like seeing people being injured or killed, go right ahead. I can only tell you what I think.

When did I say that? Just because I believe you enjoy danger doesn't mean you take pleasure in watching people die.

[Frank Tuesday]

For me it's not danger, it's challenge. The problem with that is that most of the times, challenge and danger go together. You try to make the racing safer by lowering the danger, but you also end up lowering the challenge and making everything duller (almost everything post 1994 is an example of this). It is super difficult (and sometimes impossible) to lower the danger while maintaining the challenge.

 

I agree entirely with this.  I love motocross racing.  The challenge is huge, and this shows in the lap times.  The absolute best are seconds faster per lap that the merely great riders.  At one race, the winner averaged 6 seconds per lap faster than the second place rider on a 2 minute lap time.  It was stunningly beautiful to watch.  It was the equivalent of 2nd place in F1 finishing 3 laps down without a significant car advantage.  The downside to this is that the risk of injury is great.  Almost every week, someone suffers a crash that ends their season or makes them miss multiple rounds.  Out of the top 20 AMA riders, only 3 haven't missed any races due to injury this year.  There are frequent discussions about whether the tracks are too difficult, or the bikes too powerful.  I hate that it is acceptable that 85% of riders will injure themselves enough to miss races, but I love that it so clearly shows who are the best of the best, as no other motorsport can.  They could make the courses easier, and the bikes less powerful, The races would be closer, with more potential winners, but the specialness it has would be gone.  

Edited by Frank Tuesday, 01 July 2015 - 13:40.

[redreni]

When did I say that? Just because I believe you enjoy danger doesn't mean you take pleasure in watching people die.

 

In this case it would amount to more or less the same thing. If I enjoy danger and, as a result of that, I take up a dangerous sport, that would be fine. If I enjoy danger and, as a result, I watch dangerous sports, to my mind that would be bordering on ghoulish, because if a sport is dangerous, it is inevitable that people will be hurt. Over time, that's not a risk, it's a certainty.

 

If I liked danger, I would be more interested in rugby than in motor racing. I'm not.

[BlinkyMcSquinty]

I hate crashes, I loath injuries, and any death makes me very miserable for months. That being said, knowing that the drivers are riding the ragged edge of control is something very appealing to me. That is where (and I am sure, most fans) want to see them, riding that ragged edge between incredibly displays of speed and talent, and what goes wrong when they exceed the limits.

 

IMO no single mistake or failure should result in injury or death.

 

And that is where Formula One has sometimes erred too much on the side of safety. Most times, if a driver gets a wheel on the grass (or these days, over the white line), the only consequence is a loss of 0.01 seconds. I definitely do not want to return to the days when a driver error of that manner would result in his death, but removing the consequences of mistakes has removed a lot of appeal.

 

Strangely enough, I watch a lot of online simulator racing more than Formula One, and find it very interesting and exciting. And because the only consequences are just some bruised electrons and damaged egos, the drivers can push to the absolute maximum, and I don't have that sickening feeling when something goes wrong.

[Prost1997T]

Out of the top 20 AMA riders, only 3 haven't missed any races due to injury this year.  There are frequent discussions about whether the tracks are too difficult, or the bikes too powerful.  I hate that it is acceptable that 85% of riders will injure themselves enough to miss races, but I love that it so clearly shows who are the best of the best, as no other motorsport can.

Now that you mention it, Michael Johnson suffered partial paralysis in a motocross accident, but he's been able to race single seaters (Skip Barber and in the Indycar ladder) thanks to hand controls.

[Tapz63]

In this case it would amount to more or less the same thing. If I enjoy danger and, as a result of that, I take up a dangerous sport, that would be fine. If I enjoy danger and, as a result, I watch dangerous sports, to my mind that would be bordering on ghoulish, because if a sport is dangerous, it is inevitable that people will be hurt. Over time, that's not a risk, it's a certainty.

If I liked danger, I would be more interested in rugby than in motor racing. I'm not.

It is never a certainty. It is always a risk.

I understand the need for safety improvements in general and support them, but I think the cars speed should reflect their safer design and environment. As safety improves in planes or trains, they go faster.

And I do not see how it is ghoulish either. I enjoy taking risks here and there and enjoy and watching others do it also. I have huge respect for them. Like you I would be saddened if something bad happened to them, as was the case with Bianchi. But that does not mean I think they should slow down the cars or take away gravel (I know you agree with the gravel bit) to stop it.

All deaths are saddening, but it is wrong in my view to say that only safer changes can be made, any dangerous moves are sickening/crazy. Dangerous supercar going faster than it's predecessor is made, do you marvel at the creation or just call it a death trap and a condemn it's creation?

Edited by Tapz63, 01 July 2015 - 15:25.

[HeadFirst]

 

That's 1 in 10 years. Do you have any idea how many professional (just to limit the numbers) cycling events are taking place every year? And how many cyclists are taking part in every race? (hint: quite a lot more than in any F1 or even WEC race)

 

No, that's 2 in 10 years and I was only including the Grand Tours (Spain, Italy, and France). I still do not see your point though. I can't believe you think that descending these mountain roads at high speed is safe. Simple logic dictates that going off the side of a mountain road, or (much worse) hitting a guardrail at speed on a Bicycle is likely going to have serious consequences.

 

 

***** Edit ... No you, are right. It IS 1 in 10 years. I should never post before the second espresso.

Edited by HeadFirst, 01 July 2015 - 19:40.

[whitewaterMkII]

I agree entirely with this.  I love motocross racing.  The challenge is huge, and this shows in the lap times.  The absolute best are seconds faster per lap that the merely great riders.  At one race, the winner averaged 6 seconds per lap faster than the second place rider on a 2 minute lap time.  It was stunningly beautiful to watch.  It was the equivalent of 2nd place in F1 finishing 3 laps down without a significant car advantage.  The downside to this is that the risk of injury is great.  Almost every week, someone suffers a crash that ends their season or makes them miss multiple rounds.  Out of the top 20 AMA riders, only 3 haven't missed any races due to injury this year.  There are frequent discussions about whether the tracks are too difficult, or the bikes too powerful.  I hate that it is acceptable that 85% of riders will injure themselves enough to miss races, but I love that it so clearly shows who are the best of the best, as no other motorsport can.  They could make the courses easier, and the bikes less powerful, The races would be closer, with more potential winners, but the specialness it has would be gone.  

Those are some troubling stats for sure. I do some riding myself with a group of friends here in SoCal and one of my friends' son was the most impressive rider I ever saw, literally looked like he was floating over the terrain. He was signed by Honda at 16 and unfortunately in his first pure factory ride, the Baja 1000, he crashed hard while in front of the pack by around 30 minutes. It was a devastating crash and separated his brain stem, he lived although he will never ride anything again. Tragic.

[Szoelloe]

Short answer yes.

[scheivlak]

No, that's 2 in 10 years and I was only including the Grand Tours (Spain, Italy, and France). I still do not see your point though. I can't believe you think that descending these mountain roads at high speed is safe. Simple logic dictates that going off the side of a mountain road, or (much worse) hitting a guardrail at speed on a Bicycle is likely going to have serious consequences.

C'mon, 1995 - the year you mentioned yourself!- was 20 years ago.  And Casartelli died mainly because he didn't have a helmet on - which is compulsory now.

 

I follow cycling pretty closely. If you have the statistics to back up your point, show it. 

[August]

This line in this article says it quite well:

 

 

 

I don't want the number crunchers to forget the overall principle that this should be a dangerous sport, not an excessively dangerous game of chance.

 

I mean, danger brings its own thrill to motorsports. I don't mean series should try to make races more dangerous but neither should they become oversanitized. Safety improvements are alright when they don't change the sport. Paving runoffs is oversanitizing the sport, it takes the challenge of finding the limit. Then again, keeping a gravel trap and taking the barriers farther isn't oversanitizing, just a safety improvement. The challenge is still there; you go out and you're out of the race, the risks when going out are just smaller. Safety improvements are alright but must not reduce the challenge. If you can't improve safety without reducing the challenge, then you just can't improve safety. Why did you even think motorsports are safe? The drivers should acknowledge the risk as they've joined the series.

 

But I have to say the risks become uncomfortable when they aren't anymore in drivers' own control. There will always be that kind of risk, for example somebody in front of you crashes and you have no time to react but to get crashed. But in open-wheel, open-cockpit pack racing that risk is getting too big. 

[anneomoly]

This line in this article says it quite well:

 

 

I mean, danger brings its own thrill to motorsports. I don't mean series should try to make races more dangerous but neither should they become oversanitized. Safety improvements are alright when they don't change the sport. Paving runoffs is oversanitizing the sport, it takes the challenge of finding the limit. Then again, keeping a gravel trap and taking the barriers farther isn't oversanitizing, just a safety improvement. The challenge is still there; you go out and you're out of the race, the risks when going out are just smaller. Safety improvements are alright but must not reduce the challenge. If you can't improve safety without reducing the challenge, then you just can't improve safety. Why did you even think motorsports are safe? The drivers should acknowledge the risk as they've joined the series.

 

But I have to say the risks become uncomfortable when they aren't anymore in drivers' own control. There will always be that kind of risk, for example somebody in front of you crashes and you have no time to react but to get crashed. But in open-wheel, open-cockpit pack racing that risk is getting too big. 

 

How are you defining 'the challenge' though? Because that's really what's at the heart of it. I think we all agree that not hitting a haybale and bursting into flames to die in a fiery crematorium of a car isn't 'the challenge', so anything reducing fire risk can be viewed positively. Ditto not hitting a tree, or a stationary recovery vehicle, or having a tyre hit you in the head (which let's not forget, wasn't far off happening last year at Silverstone after Raikonnen's crash).

 

Gravel traps are, I think, over deified as the cure all solution, though I've plenty of memories of drivers powering through them only having lost some tyre wear and a bit of lap time, or being pushed out of them by marshals to much the same effect back in the days when there was a minute between cars.

 

And as others (myself included) have demonstrated - other sports with high fatality rates tend to be small, niche sports. They'll never be mainstream so they don't have to answer to a mainstream audience. More to the point, they'll never have the finances to fully improve the sport by themselves, nor to implement changes, even if they wanted to. The only one that perhaps does have the clout and finances globally is horse racing.

 

So regardless of the challenge, at what point does an FIA refusal to implement new ideas in safety in the name of maintaining the challenge open itself up to a negligence charge either from the family of a spectator or driver?

Edited by anneomoly, 01 July 2015 - 19:39.

[redreni]

It is never a certainty. It is always a risk.

I understand the need for safety improvements in general and support them, but I think the cars speed should reflect their safer design and environment. As safety improves in planes or trains, they go faster.

And I do not see how it is ghoulish either. I enjoy taking risks here and there and enjoy and watching others do it also. I have huge respect for them. Like you I would be saddened if something bad happened to them, as was the case with Bianchi. But that does not mean I think they should slow down the cars or take away gravel (I know you agree with the gravel bit) to stop it.

All deaths are saddening, but it is wrong in my view to say that only safer changes can be made, any dangerous moves are sickening/crazy. Dangerous supercar going faster than it's predecessor is made, do you marvel at the creation or just call it a death trap and a condemn it's creation?

 

It's never a certainty for any individual participant, but if you watch enough motorsport, you will definitely see injuries and you will eventually see a fatal accident. I just hope and pray that we are all watching in spite of that fact and not because of it. That's all I'm saying.

 

You are correct to point out that it is acceptable to change the design of a car to make it faster even if the designer is aware that the changes he is making will increase the risk of injury to the driver, whereas it is not acceptable to make such changes to a corner or a track. In neither case would the intention be to endanger a driver; it would merely be a foreseeable consequence. But the difference is that it's accepted that the imperative to make a car faster is kind of the whole reason a designer gets up and goes to work in the morning, which is why we put the responsibility for making sure the cars are safe enough in the FIA's hands and let them handle it through regulation.

 

A circuit owner's main priority is normally to remain in business, and this usually means not spending money if they can help it, and so the impetus for ant track changes normally comes from the FIA via the homologation process, with input and pressure from the GPDA or other drivers' groups, the FIA Institute etc. But there's no countervailing or overriding sporting or competitive incentive to make the track more challenging. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that if a car doesn't stand up to an impact very well and a driver is injured, people will end to blame the sanctioning body for not having more stringent safety standards, whereas if a driver was injured because a corner had been reprofiled to make it more challenging, it would look much worse for the track.

[HeadFirst]

C'mon, 1995 - the year you mentioned yourself!- was 20 years ago.  And Casartelli died mainly because he didn't have a helmet on - which is compulsory now.

 

I follow cycling pretty closely. If you have the statistics to back up your point, show it. 

 

Dude, I corrected my post. My point is that bicycle racing is more dangerous than most people think. I have given you the stats on death in cycling and then narrowed it down to specifics, as in descents in the grand tours, and all you do is counter that the numbers are insignificant. If you actually follow cycling at all, or have competed in cycling events, you would see the danger. Eleven deaths in pro road-racing since 1995.

[Bob Riebe]

Risk, not danger

 

No one wants to see injuries. And while we don't 'watch for the crashes' there is a certain, well, thrill in seeing an accident live. Even the most basic oval crash in Indycar, in person, is an image and particular a sound you don't soon forget.

 

We want to be amazed by the incident but also that the guy(or gal) got out of it immediately and wanted to go again.

You hit the nail on the head.

 

For drivers, it was beating the odds, for fans it was watching drivers do things people found amazing by beating the odds.

 

In the U.S. sprint cars were the big show for decades and dozens of drivers left in an ambulance, dead or alive, yet it filled the stands and if one driver quite, there was another to replace him.

 

Doing the exceptional has always been the main draw of dangerous sports, without exception.

 

Take away the danger that comes with the exceptional and you have taken away a large part of that which makes a draw to those who cannot do it for what ever reason.

 

Of course take away the variety of machinery proving it is better than some one else product and you have taken away enough that people will no longer really care; a point that has been reached in too much of motor sports..

Edited by Bob Riebe, 02 July 2015 - 15:31.

[greenman]

IndyCar, imho, needs to watch out. They've been very lucky several times already this season. If they continue to push it the way they have been, someone's going to get killed.

 

Exactly. Watching IndyCar lately, I just get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach way too often. NASCAR too, to some extent (esp concerned for the fans), & even F1 with the car-over-car collisions.

I don't know man, one of the things that bothers me with the backlash regarding safety in Indycar is that Fontana really is a one-off race on the calendar in regards to how they race on that track compared to others. Maybe they got the package a bit "wrong" this year (well depending on who you ask), but it's not like it has been a common thing. Apart from that there was that crash-filled build up to Indy, but the race ended up being just fine. So I don't know what exactly they have been "pushing" or what races you have been watching.

 

As for the Miller opinion and this thread, there is certainly a draw in danger of motorsports, but that doesn't mean that people watch it because somebody might get killed. It's more that we enjoy athletes (in any sport) push themselves to their limit, and in motorsports, pushing to the limits is often connected to danger of something potentially terrible happening. As someone said, if you could assure that nothing will happen to drivers in the race, most people would probably sign up to watch races like Indycar in Fontana on Saturday. But if racing like that would mean that every tenth race or so, someone will get killed... Then very few people (in this day and age anyway) would come on board. In my case, I always enjoyed watching MotoGP, but as much as I am drawn to aggressive riding styles, e.g. the way that Simoncelli's was riding, I was completely devastated after his death, and it did kill the enjoyment of the sport for a while.

 

I think F1, for me, has lost some of this edge, especially over the last few years. Paved run-off areas are one thing, but even otherwise it's just the sensation that the sport isn't about pushing the limits anymore. It's not just that there is one team dominating - I for one didn't have too much of a problem Marquez's domination in MotoGP last year, just because I enjoyed watching the kid ride the bike on the limit. I could see he is riding on the limit, it's what draws me to motorsport.

Edited by greenman, 01 July 2015 - 23:10.

[scheivlak]

Dude, I corrected my post. My point is that bicycle racing is more dangerous than most people think. I have given you the stats on death in cycling and then narrowed it down to specifics, as in descents in the grand tours, and all you do is counter that the numbers are insignificant. If you actually follow cycling at all, or have competed in cycling events, you would see the danger. Eleven deaths in pro road-racing since 1995.

So still nothing to add to your specific opinion about the danger of descents.

[SlipLtd]

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” - Ernest Hemingway

[Collombin]

There is no evidence Hemingway ever said anything of the sort, sadly.