66 replies to this topic

[ch103]

After watching the Daytona 500 yesterday, it became clear to me that for some reason, today's racers are completely unrelateable to regular people.  Maybe its income inequality thats killed the middle classes in developed nations or its the fact that the drivers these days were all born "in the family" so to speak, when both the winning driver and Jeff Gordon celebrated, it was in a way that did not feel like joy, almost forced fake fun...

 

Its like when a rider and horse win the Kentucky Derby or the other two races, no one knows who the jockeys are (or cares) and no one knows who the horse owner is (or cares).  Yesterday saw 'the 24 car' win when Jeff Gordon won the Daytona 500 in the 24... totally different worlds...  The middle class in America was stronger in 1995 than it is today and most people could relate to Earnhardt, Rudd, Martin and could easily vilify Jeff.

 

What we saw yesterday was the horse jockey win and celebrate with the car owner...  And like the horse, most race fans will never sit in the seat so to speak.  Who exactly is motorsports left for in 2024+?

 

 

[Ben1445]

Funny, since horse racing has often been quoted as the precedent by which ICE racing survives longer term

[pacificquay]

No idea what any of this really means.

 

Racing drivers have always been removed from real people.

 

That's the point - they're doing things mere mortals couldn't even conceive of.

[Risil]

Funny, since horse racing has often been quoted as the precedent by which ICE racing survives longer term

I think these comparisons are misguided -- horses are not technology, they're living creatures.

[Ben1445]

I think these comparisons are misguided -- horses are not technology, they're living creatures.

Same here, but I think it is interesting to see the idea conveyed as both a source of hope for the sport and, in other camps, fears for its future.
.

Edited by Ben1445, 20 February 2024 - 13:52.

[IrvTheSwerve]

'Scuderia' translates to 'stable' remember!

[PlatenGlass]

No idea what any of this really means.

Racing drivers have always been removed from real people.

That's the point - they're doing things mere mortals couldn't even conceive of.

It's not about being "mere mortals" but about being among the vast majority of people who simply don't have access to motorsport.

[Ben1445]

I think there’s perhaps the point that a lot of early motorsport was modelled on directly on horse racing. Brooklands was basically a horse racing layout only concreted and banked. We still use the term ‘paddock’ to this day. The people who took part were a the whole far wealthier than average. The Indy 500 has car owners, and it is the car the qualifies not the driver. NASCAR used to allow relief drivers to finish the car with a different driver to the one who started.

Any similarities or parallels aren’t things that have materialised recently out of nowhere

Edited by Ben1445, 20 February 2024 - 12:17.

[Ben1445]

The point about growing income inequality and relative strength of the middle classes in the mid-late 20th century compared to today is actually a valid (partial) explanation, I feel. Motorsport has always been sustained by the wealthy and/or dynastic, but it has only sometimes been something the (relative) masses could partake in (or at very least aspire to take part in).

But it’s a point which transcends motorsports really. In many ways you could say the same about classical music, for example.

Edited by Ben1445, 20 February 2024 - 12:35.

[Risil]

As a more general point I feel this is a consequence of the professionalization of motor sport. It took quite a long time to complete -- in the 1990s lots of drivers, bikers etc were earning really good money but on their way up had kept themselves going with various blue-collar jobs. To take three random examples from that era, Perry McCarthy worked on oil rigs (probably about the same level of personal risk as driving for Andrea Sassetti), Damon Hill was a London motorcycle courier, Troy Bayliss worked at a car body shop, Shane Byrne was a painter decorator. Most drivers had a story like that.

 

But 20-30 years on anyone who's made it to the top in F1 and MotoGP (and probably NASCAR, but I know zero about NASCAR) has been dedicating their lives to the sport since at least their teens. This means somebody has to be helping them, which in practice means either a benefactor or family money and a "karting dad". Perhaps all of the above. I bet there are a lot of ways to spend a lot of money in karting and get absolutely nowhere, so having the connections and know-how from a parent who is already in the racing business surely helps a lot.

 

Mind you we also like to complain that outside the big leagues the racing drivers are all farmers and electricians and managing directors of pest control companies and so forth, so I'm not sure that it's "real people" that we really want.

[azza200]

Also why i find a majority of the drivers in F1 all posh rich boy drivers which they are, yes i know they have been there before but its more in your face now. They have no charisma or likeablity about them compared to when i used to enjoy F1 back in the 90's and 00's none have real humble upbringings where they struggled for money or go thru the ranks to get too F1 they all in some way paid there way in for their drives. And they are all boring personality's and so up themselves and come across as fake 

[pacificquay]

 

 

Mind you we also like to complain that outside the big leagues the racing drivers are all farmers and electricians and managing directors of pest control companies and so forth, so I'm not sure that it's "real people" that we really want.

 

This is a good point.

 

You see a lot of criticism of the BTCC field for being just that, rather than ex-F1 drivers and other pros like Alain Menu and Rickard Rydell

[Risil]

But it’s a point which transcends motorsports really. In many ways you could say the same about classical music, for example.

This is off topic but you've made me think of a documentary I listened to about 18th century Naples and how to address a shortage of opera talent they took in orphans off the street and gave them full training in performance and composition and had these little wards of the opera house writing all the music in their early teens.

Mind you there are almost as many Bachs and Scarlattis in the western musical canon as there are Fittipaldis in the middling racing series of the world. I don't know what this proves.

[Nathan]

Interestingly, while the American middle class has shrunk considerably, the lower income class has slightly shrunk as well when viewed as a % of the population.  I'll let you do the math.

[BRG]

The point about growing income inequality and relative strength of the middle classes in the mid-late 20th century compared to today is actually a valid (partial) explanation, I feel. Motorsport has always been sustained by the wealthy and/or dynastic, but it has only sometimes been something the (relative) masses could partake in (or at very least aspire to take part in).

But it’s a point which transcends motorsports really. In many ways you could say the same about classical music, for example.

Not it you look at ALL motorsport, rather than just the elite part. 

 

Go to any short oval hot-rod/banger meeting and tell me it is all white collar types whose Mums are in the WI.  Or go to a autograss meeting - likewise.  The former attracts a lot of folk who work with cars, the latter the same plus a lot of agricultural types.  Go to any club level rally and see how many are toffs compared to the majority who are working or lower middle class.  I am sure the same applies in other countries.  I doubt if the World Of Outlaws series in the US is mostly peopled by lawyers and paediatricians.

[RedRabbit]

Not it you look at ALL motorsport, rather than just the elite part.

Go to any short oval hot-rod/banger meeting and tell me it is all white collar types whose Mums are in the WI. Or go to a autograss meeting - likewise. The former attracts a lot of folk who work with cars, the latter the same plus a lot of agricultural types. Go to any club level rally and see how many are toffs compared to the majority who are working or lower middle class. I am sure the same applies in other countries. I doubt if the World Of Outlaws series in the US is mostly peopled by lawyers and paediatricians.

This is the way in South Africa too with the club and even national levels.

Most of the people involved are mechanics or similar blue collar types.

Edit: so it's understandable then that the upper echelons of motorsports that need much greater funding will have more of the white collar types involved.

Edited by RedRabbit, 20 February 2024 - 13:19.

[PayasYouRace]

I don’t understand the OP. I don’t see how anything has changed about top level motorsport. It’s always been a rarefied sport where the Everyman would never have any hope of competing.

[Nathan]

OP is having a personal finance rant.

The automobile isn't as fascinating anymore.

There are so many high risk sports to watch now.

Motorsport at all levels can have periods of being like watching paint dry.

Far less farms today means youth don't grow up with the resources to build and wrench on race cars.

Motorsports have become less technically interesting.

I think there is something to there not being blue collar role models anymore.  Before motorsports was dangerous and attracted such people, now half the grids are full of nerd/every day types.

 

I doubt if the World Of Outlaws series in the US is mostly peopled by lawyers and paediatricians.

 

Just the drivers parents and team owners.

 

Edited by Nathan, 20 February 2024 - 13:33.

[PayasYouRace]

I think these comparisons are misguided -- horses are not technology, they're living creatures.

They’re living technology, bred as engines for human utility.

[Ben1445]

As a more general point I feel this is a consequence of the professionalization of motor sport. It took quite a long time to complete -- in the 1990s lots of drivers, bikers etc were earning really good money but on their way up had kept themselves going with various blue-collar jobs. To take three random examples from that era, Perry McCarthy worked on oil rigs (probably about the same level of personal risk as driving for Andrea Sassetti), Damon Hill was a London motorcycle courier, Troy Bayliss worked at a car body shop, Shane Byrne was a painter decorator. Most drivers had a story like that.

I'm not so sure. Professionalisation of a sport doesn’t necessarily mean ‘ordinary’ people will be systemically excluded. You still find various 'rags to riches' tales for footballers, for example, usually after having been picked up by an academy talent scout and invested in from a young age by a professional club. Such an investment can make sense for a professional sport both to ensure you're getting the very best natural talent from the widest possible pool, and also to some degree in that allowing 'regular' people to believe they (or perhaps their children) could realistically make it big within the sport can increase the popularity of that sport, and so boost the revenues of the professional clubs etc. 

 

F1 teams of course have young driver programs, but I think the key difference in the case of motorsport is that the financial gap between starting up a karting/youth career and getting to the point at which any apparent talent might be picked up for funding by a driving academy is particularly large. The size of one's budget also makes a huge difference in opportunity for driving talent to show through. There's only so much that can be done about that, given the inherent technological basis of the sport, but I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that various reforms and consolidations of karting and/or junior ladder series over the years haven't done as much as they could have to address the scale of this initial financial barrier. 

 

A question then might be whether motorsport has completed a process of professionalisation, or whether that process has stalled in the economic headwinds and is tracking 'backwards' to a sport in which a limited pool of very wealthy people can take part beyond amateur grassroots? 

 

It think that would perhap account a little better for the two general viewpoints expressed in this thread of 'it's always been like this' and 'it's not what it used to be' 

Edited by Ben1445, 20 February 2024 - 13:51.

[JHSingo]

I don't get the argument of 'relatability' or why it's even needed. I've watched all sorts of different types of motorsport from a very young age. There have been many drivers and riders I've liked, admired or even idolised, but I couldn't name a single one I 'related' to. I think by the very nature of the sport, it's not one most people can easily relate to anyway.

 

But that's not why I'm watching, or a fan. Primarily, I just want to watch good racing, and who wins and what their life story is comes after that. 

 

So, I don't really understand the original post either. Don't take this the wrong way, but it does seem like a sweeping generalization 'old man yells at cloud' sort of whinge we periodically see on these forums from people who've fallen out of love with motor racing. 

 

And just because you personally struggle to relate to it, doesn't mean that everyone does. I know a lot of people like to catastrophize on these forums about motorsport being a 'dying' sport or whatever, but elsewhere on the internet beyond this community, there is plenty of evidence that motorsport continues to attract new fans all the time, whether that's as a result of the continued popularity of sim racing, things like DtS and NASCAR: Full Speed, or just real life racing. 

Edited by JHSingo, 20 February 2024 - 14:15.

[PayasYouRace]

Of course, this is just me, but the one sport I’m most likely to find people I can relate to is Formula 1. Not the drivers, mind.

[juicy sushi]

After watching the Daytona 500 yesterday, it became clear to me that for some reason, today's racers are completely unrelateable to regular people.  Maybe its income inequality thats killed the middle classes in developed nations or its the fact that the drivers these days were all born "in the family" so to speak, when both the winning driver and Jeff Gordon celebrated, it was in a way that did not feel like joy, almost forced fake fun...

 

Its like when a rider and horse win the Kentucky Derby or the other two races, no one knows who the jockeys are (or cares) and no one knows who the horse owner is (or cares).  Yesterday saw 'the 24 car' win when Jeff Gordon won the Daytona 500 in the 24... totally different worlds...  The middle class in America was stronger in 1995 than it is today and most people could relate to Earnhardt, Rudd, Martin and could easily vilify Jeff.

 

What we saw yesterday was the horse jockey win and celebrate with the car owner...  And like the horse, most race fans will never sit in the seat so to speak.  Who exactly is motorsports left for in 2024+?

I am wondering what was different in the mid-90s that you claim was a golden age, or in the mid-70s, or even the mid-30s.  The demographics of racing participants has always been upper income, as racing has never been a cheap hobby (let's not pretend Earnhardt or Martin didn't have parents who financially supported their early careers).  I didn't see any difference between any other big wins this year.  Fans are not part of the celebration generally, we're kept on the other side of the rope save when a driver makes the point of deliberately crossing it from their side (Castroneves and Newgarden being the first two that come to mind for me).  

 

As far as your socio-economic observations, you would have been more accurate 15 years ago.  The last half decade has seen significant "re-shoring" as the planet sorts into new political consensus points, but that's not the point of this forum.  

[OvDrone]

After watching the Daytona 500 yesterday, it became clear to me that for some reason, today's racers are completely unrelateable to regular people.  Maybe its income inequality thats killed the middle classes in developed nations or its the fact that the drivers these days were all born "in the family" so to speak, when both the winning driver and Jeff Gordon celebrated, it was in a way that did not feel like joy, almost forced fake fun...

 

Its like when a rider and horse win the Kentucky Derby or the other two races, no one knows who the jockeys are (or cares) and no one knows who the horse owner is (or cares).  Yesterday saw 'the 24 car' win when Jeff Gordon won the Daytona 500 in the 24... totally different worlds...  The middle class in America was stronger in 1995 than it is today and most people could relate to Earnhardt, Rudd, Martin and could easily vilify Jeff.

 

What we saw yesterday was the horse jockey win and celebrate with the car owner...  And like the horse, most race fans will never sit in the seat so to speak.  Who exactly is motorsports left for in 2024+?

That's just due to William Byron's personality.

Remember, his whole thing is that he started his Racing career in video games and that he likes playing with LEGO - and that's it. 

You sse him celebrate with his car owner, Hendrick, after a win with those big hats, or with Gordon - yeah, it's all super corporate and cringe. That's how Hendrick is and that's how Byron is. Compared to let's say if Chastain would've won - it would all be about how a poor Florida watermelon farmer found huge success racing stock cars, or Truex the fisherman, or Preece the mechanic etc etc. 

Nascar is far more corporate than people think ( I blame Talladega and it's lore that everyone thinks every Nascar race is a dumbdown random wreckfest for a very specific crowd ) - it's right up there with F1 & MotoGP. It's an entertainment business sponsored by some very bland entities focused mostly on greed than anything else. And it was always thus, at the end of the day.

[Risil]

I'm not so sure. Professionalisation of a sport doesn’t necessarily mean ‘ordinary’ people will be systemically excluded. You still find various 'rags to riches' tales for footballers, for example, usually after having been picked up by an academy talent scout and invested in from a young age by a professional club. Such an investment can make sense for a professional sport both to ensure you're getting the very best natural talent from the widest possible pool, and also to some degree in that allowing 'regular' people to believe they (or perhaps their children) could realistically make it big within the sport can increase the popularity of that sport, and so boost the revenues of the professional clubs etc. 

 

F1 teams of course have young driver programs, but I think the key difference in the case of motorsport is that the financial gap between starting up a karting/youth career and getting to the point at which any apparent talent might be picked up for funding by a driving academy is particularly large. The size of one's budget also makes a huge difference in opportunity for driving talent to show through. There's only so much that can be done about that, given the inherent technological basis of the sport, but I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that various reforms and consolidations of karting and/or junior ladder series over the years haven't done as much as they could have to address the scale of this initial financial barrier. 

 

A question then might be whether motorsport has completed a process of professionalisation, or whether that process has stalled in the economic headwinds and is tracking 'backwards' to a sport in which a limited pool of very wealthy people can take part beyond amateur grassroots? 

 

It think that would perhap account a little better for the two general viewpoints expressed in this thread of 'it's always been like this' and 'it's not what it used to be' 

That's interesting, thanks. You've reminded me of something 2011 BSB champion Tommy Hill said a while ago, that in his opinion the only reason he made it as a professional motorcycle racer was because Rob McElnea and Yamaha UK happened to put together a deal with Virgin Mobile (remember them??) to run a single-make series where everyone got an identical Yamaha R6 (a proper piece of race kit) and the promise of a good BSB ride with Mac's team for the winner. Hill won it and became a factory rider at a time when such rides existed (it probably came too early for him but that's by the by). The deal only ran for a few years and nothing replaced it.

 

It's a model for ladder series to follow -- you need somehow to provide cost-controlled but high-quality and specialized racing machines, with a decent prize fund to ensure the winners can go to the next level. But this is so hard to achieve in practice. Maybe the cars are too crude or underpowered, or to win you need the right specialist parts or setup knowledge, or maybe it's a good series but at the end you can't afford a million dollars a season or whatever the going rate is for F2. But how do you get there? In the Yamaha R6 Cup that I mentioned, there was a lot of goodwill to train future British stars (and 2000s bike racing produced many), but it the cost was underwritten by two corporate marketing budgets and the whole thing only made technical sense because of the odd situation in superbike racing where any idiot could buy a bike for under 10k, put some slick tyres and racing shocks on it and have a machine whose performance wasn't far off a world championship bike).

 

I'm probably guilty of "it's not what it used to be" in this post but I do think that the conditions for democracy in motor racing really don't come around very often and this is why. You need the right technical platform, which may or may not exist, and you need access to huge amounts of someone else's money.

[juicy sushi]

I mean the North American scene has the MX-5, now the GR86 Cup as well, and the Road to Indy that provide a lot of funding and scholarships at the bottom of the ladder that gives young drivers who do win the chance to go to the next level.  It has worked well enough to get Oliver Askew all the way to Indycar despite his family not having the money to pay for that path, and others as well to various drives in IMSA, but they will never be the norm, and never have been.  Racing drivers generally have always come from money, and the colour of the collar has not been a dividing line, as plenty of "blue collar" background stories involve the parent owning the blue collar company, not being the entry level employee.

[IrvTheSwerve]

I can't really stand or appreciate e-sports, but it's probably a big part of the future in terms of 'affordable motorsport' and even a gateway to being recognised for real motorsport (as is already happening).

 

All you need is a console and a cheapy steering wheel. Saying that, some of the rigs I see early teenagers with these days are crazy. Even as a 36 year old it's a different world to what I grew up with.

[F1matt]

Road racing is a division of motorsport that has stayed true to its roots.  Long may it continue.

[Sterzo]

Count me as another who doesn't understand the opening post. I thought there were more more people competing today than ever before. And in fairly recent times I've wandered through a paddock, past a group of reasonably well-known up-and-coming young drivers, who were laughing and joking with each other. One of them gave me an acknowledging smile when I looked their way.

[AlexPrime]

I actually like that drivers are bit like knights of old, removed from us. Makes them look like superheroes.

[Disgrace]

Does this mean we need to wear fancy hats to attend?

[ArnageWRC]

_{If it was horse racing, then as we've seen during the current NH season, the top stars hardly ever race, and are being saved for Cheltenham in March. The equivalent of Kalle missing most of the WRC season but being classed as the champion.....or Max turning up just for Monaco, Abu Dhabi and being World Champion...........}

[Lemnpiper]

 Throwing  a couple thoughts in here to see if these could be part of issues the opening post was speaking to.

 

  1  most of the top teams  have between  3 to 4 cars in each race. So a team starting out  will struggle to get in . At Daytona for instance under the old qualifying format  you'd have the top two fastest cars take the 1st row , then in the qualifying race  the top 14  excluding the car allready in on the front row would qualify . Then the next 10 spots would go to cars  based on their qualifying speed not allready in . . Some years provisionals were added and some not.  As an example  BJ Mclead would have gotten in based on his "twins" race performance.Not sure who  would not have made. But is an example of a seeming small team losing out on a potential big payday.

 

The other thing i have noticed  and i checked Racing Reference on is starting with the 2015 race   only 11 cars have dropped out from 2015 thru 2024 with mechanical issues   4 went out via DVP  but  ----->  142 <---- have dropped out due to crashes..

 

   This leads me to believe due the cars being built so  well and parts being so excellent, literally more and more "big ones" are goin to occur since so many cars are remaining on the track since the field isnt being "thinned" by part breakdowns.

 

  Also with the aerodynamics being much in play driver are  gonna play follow the leader til after the last pit stop to try to win  . Ergo pack racing.  While some  it seems exciting ,to some it seems like standing on a hill next to 1-95 and watch the traffic pass.

 

 

  Just my thought  but i will leave with one final observation   the 2024 Daytona 500 was won by a car being discontinued.  Gonna be fun to see how Nascar keeps a GM in the field real soon.

 

 

 

    Paul

[NotAPineapple]

If ever there was a thread which proves that motorsport fans will always find something to complain about

[1player]

I don't know about US motorsports, and it might depend on your age, but never in my life I have felt racing drivers to be relatable. It is a sport for ultra rich and very driven people to the point of obsession, I am part of neither groups.

Maybe this wasn't the case in the 1950s, but no driver I have ever seen race in the past 30 years was a nobody that put together a racing frame in their garage with the money they made on their milk rounds.

[noikeee]

No idea what any of this really means.

Racing drivers have always been removed from real people.

That's the point - they're doing things mere mortals couldn't even conceive of.

Exactly, all of us mortals can barely conceive the idea of crashing something more expensive than a road Ferrari and not have it dent the bank account.

If the sarcasm isn't obvious: the vast majority of modern racing drivers are just impossibly rich ****s. It's just that the ones that graduate to levels like F1 are impossibly rich ****s that also happen to be incredibly talented. Well, most of them, the back of the grid is merely mildly talented, and would be humbled by some other slightly less rich ****s had they gotten the money to train themselves up to that level.

Edited by noikeee, 21 February 2024 - 00:55.

[highdownforce]

Who exactly is motorsports left for in 2024+?

Unironically, try these racers:

[Jackmancer]

the drivers these days were all born "in the family" so to speak

 

Not sure if I missed something but Daytona 500 winner started in iRacing from a non-racing family?

[AlexS]

There is a distinct lack of support for the OP inferences, conclusions.

 

The middle class in America was stronger in 1995 than it is today and most people could relate to Earnhardt, Rudd, Martin and could easily vilify Jeff.

 

So you are supposed to vilify people by their money and not by what they are?

[juicy sushi]

Not sure if I missed something but Daytona 500 winner started in iRacing from a non-racing family?

But that’s not acceptable for the OP as it’s too bourgeois. His family has not proven they had dirty enough fingernails.

Edited by juicy sushi, 21 February 2024 - 11:46.

[Sterzo]

So you are supposed to vilify people by their money and not by what they are?

Sadly, lazy prejudice leads some to decry people who are richer than them, rather than being concerned about those who are poorer. As far as "relatable" US drivers are concerned, I watched Josef Newgarden in his underfunded seasons in British racing, and the way he raced, and the way he spoke when interviewed, were equally enjoyable. Same has applied to many others now in Indycar, IMSA etc.

[noikeee]

Sadly, lazy prejudice leads some to decry people who are richer than them, rather than being concerned about those who are poorer. As far as "relatable" US drivers are concerned, I watched Josef Newgarden in his underfunded seasons in British racing, and the way he raced, and the way he spoke when interviewed, were equally enjoyable. Same has applied to many others now in Indycar, IMSA etc.

Rich people can be kind and good, they can be legitimately talented and deserving.

 

But we're on a situation where the entire F1 grid is either a) billionaires, b) sons of former drivers (aka millionaires with connections within the sport), and c) the odd rare insanely talented kid that was spotted age 10 by a F1 team or by a billionaire who wanted to take a punt on him, and bankrolled to oblivion ever since. And even this kid obviously had wealthy parents too otherwise he wouldn't be karting anyway.

 

Come on this is not normal. Racing was always a sport for the wealthy but it's become a sport for the 0.001% instead of the 1%.

[Sterzo]

^ The OP was talking about American racing.

[Risil]

So you are supposed to vilify people by their money and not by what they are?

I don't think that's what the OP was saying. Jeff Gordon didn't come from money either. Although from memory he may have had a family connection with an Indiana sprint car owner. Not exactly blue chip.

[piszkosfred]

I don't think that's what the OP was saying. Jeff Gordon didn't come from money either. Although from memory he may have had a family connection with an Indiana sprint car owner. Not exactly blue chip.

The big reason why Gordon ended up in Nascar is they didn't have enough money for a Cart program. At that time Nascar was reasonably cheap and than his talent made the difference.

[RekF1]

I've said this many times before and look forward to being ignored again, but the corrupt world of horse racing is far cleaner than motor racing (F1 at least).

If more than one horse is running from the same stable, whether in an AW/class 6 at Wolverhampton, or even if it's the Gold Cup. The stewards will dsq the whole stable from the result if it's deemed that any runners were to impede others unnecessarily. It's implied guilt, even if you don't win the race it's considered an undue influence.


Also, house racing is dangerous and I have zero envy for jockeys. They're crazy strong and dedicated.

[PayasYouRace]

House racing does sound dangerous.

[RekF1]

Exactly, all of us mortals can barely conceive the idea of crashing something more expensive than a road Ferrari and not have it dent the bank account.
If the sarcasm isn't obvious: the vast majority of modern racing drivers are just impossibly rich ****s. It's just that the ones that graduate to levels like F1 are impossibly rich ****s that also happen to be incredibly talented. Well, most of them, the back of the grid is merely mildly talented, and would be humbled by some other slightly less rich ****s had they gotten the money to train themselves up to that level.

I'm also a bit depressed. I think it's related to the g3n0c1dè stuff and the terrifying cost of living. Add our own personal traumatic events in the mix, and... "Baby, you got yourself a stew"

RIP Carl Weathers

[RekF1]

House racing does sound dangerous.

Ffs! You're why I have a therapist!!!

[MikeTekRacing]

After watching the Daytona 500 yesterday, it became clear to me that for some reason, today's racers are completely unrelateable to regular people. Maybe its income inequality thats killed the middle classes in developed nations or its the fact that the drivers these days were all born "in the family" so to speak, when both the winning driver and Jeff Gordon celebrated, it was in a way that did not feel like joy, almost forced fake fun...

Its like when a rider and horse win the Kentucky Derby or the other two races, no one knows who the jockeys are (or cares) and no one knows who the horse owner is (or cares). Yesterday saw 'the 24 car' win when Jeff Gordon won the Daytona 500 in the 24... totally different worlds... The middle class in America was stronger in 1995 than it is today and most people could relate to Earnhardt, Rudd, Martin and could easily vilify Jeff.

What we saw yesterday was the horse jockey win and celebrate with the car owner... And like the horse, most race fans will never sit in the seat so to speak. Who exactly is motorsports left for in 2024+?

Not sure I get what you mean. Who are the regular people? Who are the other ones?
Lots or racers in all leagues come from humble beginnings. A lot of the successful ones do to.
What does income inequality have to do with anything? Shouldn’t income median be more important as a metric? If everyone makes 5$ a month things are solved? Or are they better than if some make 5, some make 10, some 15 and so on?