sorry, just wanted to make sure you were paying attention!

 

Once you go "track", you never go back.

I've always thought of "track" to equal roadcourse, and dragstrip to equal "strip".

BTW, real racing takes place on a roadcourse!

 

real racing is when one car/driver competes against another car(s)/driver

 

ergo, drag racing is not real racing because it is 98% about the car.

 

opinions are like certain body parts on a person......everybody has one.

 

change that to A body part in my previous post.
That is me in #127 to show you that I do/have/had other interests in motor sports. Is motor sports politically correct when i refer to drag racing?
Does it only take 2% skill to race a funny car? could you do it?

 

Roadcourse racing is the only motorsport that deserves to be called real racing. My opinion is the only one that matters, all others are meaningless.

And anybody that can't take a joke...can kiss that part of my anatomy through which material, similar to that which spews forth from many others mouths, exits my body.

</sarcasm>

Seriously though, I'm not a fan of circle track or dragracing. But all motorsports, even the ones involving vehicles with less than 4 wheels or even no wheels at all, take some amount of skill and possibly natural talent to do really well. I'm a roadracer, but I've been on high speed/high bank ovals and I have to say it was an experience that reinforced my respect for those roundy round boys. Still, I do believe that driver skill is more important for roadracing than circle track, and more important for circle track than drag racing. I'd also venture to say that driver skill in autocrossing is at least as important as it is in roadracing, more so at times.

To the point: Drag racing is indeed a motorsport in my opinion. Its a sport that involves a vehicle that is propelled by a motor. Can't argue with that. I actually agree with you fowlman01....I just personally love roadracing and no other form of racing comes close for me.

Unfortunately, by that definition above, I'd have to say that "drifting" may actually be a motorsport, but then again I don't consider drifting a sport since the finishing order is determined by style rather than covering a given distance in the quickest time possible. Do we have any badazz drifters here? My nomex is on

 

We Americans are like brainwashed sheep. The media runs our lives, so we get crappy NASCAR racing, we get the popularity of SUV's, we get the Harley bike craze. Over in Europe, they can't figure us out at all. Tourists come from England to Daytona Bike Week, and can't understand why, while there is all this professional bike racing going on at Daytona Speedway, most people are downtown wearing leather vests, polishing their chrome, or sitting in a bar. Let's face it, we're messed up.

Even when something good happens, like the resurgence of the sportbike craze, with sport motorcycles selling like crazy, we get the stuntaz, who could care less about being able to properly run fast on a roadcourse. Nope, their sportbike is just for wheelies, stoppies, and burnouts.

I think we need to turn our TV's off a little more!

 

GaryK,
you have an open mind. first one on this thread for a while. Again I love all motorsports. i am not a drag racing fanatic. it is just somehting i happen to being doing now, because i have a goal in that area. more than likely i will be doing autoX again soon. i guess the bottom line with me and why i have wasted so much time on this thread is that there is very little ojectivity being shown here. Does it matter what we are into with our Z's. I believe it is all about enjoying this wonderful piece of equipment that has tons of potential in what ever area of motorsports, rallye's drifting etc that you want to do. team RS-S is campaigning a 350 Z in their F1 drifting events. i'm not into it, but i know that i can't drift a car an inch from a wall with the door open, one leg out of the car while i am waving at the spectators.

 

I have been to a "drag strip" a few times, just out of curiousity. To me, it just seemed like something that anyone with basic driving skill could learn to do very quickly. Hell, funny cars are even easier, you don't even shift, it's all in the black art of setting the slipper clutch. The driver's only real job is to keep it straight and cut the best light! Does it take skill? To a degree, but it's not even in the same ballpark as the skill it takes to be a top level roadracer.

Put it this way, I think a top level roadrace could become a very good drag racer in a week, I don't think the opposite is true. I am not trying to be elitist, but I really think drag racing is just a game more than a sport.

 

one more time..do you think you could keep a funny car in a straight line????????
a top level road racer would be dead in less than a week in a funny car.

 

I don't think any non-pro racer would die in a funny car guaranteed...their reaction times and 1/4 mile time certainly wouldn't be up to par but they'd eventually get it.

Roadracers will spend years trying to improve and improving gets that much harder over time looking for the perfect line, finding the best combination of braking and accelerating, finding the right suspension setup for a given course while applying these concepts to every car he drives knowing each vehicle's dynamics differ. Forget about F1 if you haven't been driving a kart or mini-bike since you were 6 years old.

And professional roadracers require greater athletic skills and training. The concentration required for pro drag racing for a 5 second run pales in comparison to the concentration required to withstand 2 hours of g-forces (3g's accelerating, 6g's braking, 4g's cornering) in Formula 1. John Force wouldn't have the athletic ability to do F1 ever nor would he even be able to get his fat **** into the tub while CART, IRL, and F1 drivers undergo highly specific training regimes to avoid blacking out from sustained loss of oxygen to the brain.

A drag racer can be taught and improve at any time becoming competitive over a relatively short span of time. A roadracer will encounter a ceiling and breaking that ceiling will be in smaller increments over time and there will be a cap to his abilities. I suppose this is why roadracers have technique unique to themselves...how many techniques are involved with drag racing that differentiate themselves between drivers?

 

Jimster,
have you ever seen some of the accidents John Forces' **** has survived? I suppose there is no g forces when you go to 300mph+ in about 4.5 seconds??? for the tenth time or so...i have great respect for road racers and know from personal experience what kind of upper body strengh is required. My point is again....nascar and drag racing both have specific challenges that certainly make them motorsports. i may be wrong, but i believe nascar is the most attended event in the US. that must mean that we have a whole bunch of yahoo, redneck, illiterate folks here in the good ole US of A. Incidently one nascar driver in a race of 200 miles or more will experience a whole lot more g forces and wear and tear on thier bodies than a whole field of regional scca racers

 

I'm not saying drag racing isn't motorsports and funny cars have their associated g-forces at 300mph but i still believe the learning curve for roadracing is much greater than drag racing and the talent pool in F1 is much more discriminating...Michael Schumacher would make a much better drag racer than John Force will ever be as an F1 driver. Drag racing is about reaction time and skillful application of controlled throttle...sounds like Michael has those skills except he knows how to maintain that high level of concentration for 2 hours vs 5 secs.

Nascar is to me also motorsports. I just don't care for it that much though I have watched it on occasion and enjoyed watching the effects of drafting and the checkered flag has had some exciting moments.

Motorsports to me is anything that involves a reciprocating internal-combusting motor and competition to be the best. The original intent of the thread was more about nomenclature than anything else though I admit to snobbery when it comes to calling the strip a track.

 

jimster,
that is all i wanted to hear. i have never once said that one form of racing is superior to any other. i don't have any problem saying that drag racing has very few dimensions compared to other motorsports, but to put it down because a person does not like it or doesn't understand it is foolish. I just cruised through the modified threads and golly all those drag racer guys are calling the strip a track. Some changes just take a while i guess.

 

Alright, now it's my turn!

As a racer of a ROTARY equipped car I am deeply offended by your closed-minded, ignorant statement!

 

go get em reen. now you see what i have been going through on this thread. i also notice that you are good enough to have sponsors, i don't see that on the other most vocal-opinionated peoples vehicles.

 

wankels are for ******* who like inefficient intake/exhaust port overlap. j/k.

Pardon me for my oversight.

So motorsports are to me anything with competition and an internal combustion motor and wheels. Anybody into hybrids and solar panels can hug a tree.

 

A friend of mine said he saw data that stated the F1 drivers were among the greatest athletes. Their bodies have to sustained hours of punishment, thus they have great stamina. Drag racing does take skill, but not to the degree that road racing does. As for Nascar, it takes a lot less skill than say F1 or IRL for example. The exception to this is Jeff Gordon because he grew up road racing. Gordon is a great driver, plain and simple.

 

IRL is much closer to NASCAR than it is to other open-wheel racing. Bunch of guys in robust, clunky cars going in circles, occasionally crashing for audience appreciation.