went to st.george, utah for the weekend. vegas is just a little over an hour away, so we drove to LAS airport (instead of flying out of SGU) but ended up stuck in mind-bogglingly slooooow traffic because of the dumb nascar event. (we almost missed the flight. anyways, we ended up getting there in time, and went through security surprisingly fast...but we were bumped twice but finally did get on). there were so many nascar crazies at the airport. it was a veritable sea of nascar logos. soooo, why is car-racing at 12,535,343 mph so entertaining? are these guys athletes? and can it even be considered an (without laughing) actual sport?
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But I'll be trying other stuff as well...
One of the guys I work with and I got into a discussion recently about how a sport should be defined (in fact the discussion started with his declaration that NASCAR and stock car racing shouldn't be classed as a sport). Now, I'm no nascar freak (hardly even a fan), though I will partake in a race once in a while. In any event, the conclusion we came to was that a sport should be defined as any activity that involves objective, direct competition (as opposed to, say American Idol, where contest standings are based on subjective opinion), and entials some form of physical exertion _or_ a measure of physical skill.
Under those definitions, NASCAR is definitely a sport: It requires physical exertion, and results are not subject to opinion. In fact golf qualifies as a sport as well, in that there is a measure of physical skill involved, and again, results are not subject to opinion.
For comparison purposes, chess wouldn't qualify, in that while the results of any one match aren't subject to opinion, there are absolutely no physical skills needed to play the game (if there were, a computer wouldn't be able to play it without the aid of some robotic appendages or some-such).
In any event, I just thought I'd throw my $0.02 in.