Thank you "Bone Ranger"!
https://www.quora.com/How-physically-demanding-is-it-to-drive-a-NASCAR-race-car
Driving any sort of car in a race, especially in a highly competitive racing organization that can attract the most talented or gifted drivers is a VERY demanding job. It requires extraordinary powers of concentration, for hours at a time, because the cars are running at the ragged edge of the limits of traction and braking in heavy traffic just about all the time in a typical Nascar race.
This requires extraordinarily fast and accurate reflexes, and it requires a substantial level of physical endurance. If throwing a baseball hard and accurately eighty to a hundred times over the course of an afternoon is tough, think about throwing a race car with your life potentially on the line into a corner as hard as you possibly can, without wrecking it, a THOUSAND TIMES, WITHOUT a rest break at ALL.
It is not unusual for a driver who is spends plenty of time in a gym to exit his car badly dehydrated and so tired that it is easy to see that he has to make an effort just to stand up and walk.
A baseball player gets to rest over half the time, and a football player is actually in motion, PLAYING a rather minor fraction of the time that most games last, given half times etc , offense defense on and off the field etc.
Golfers are IN ACTION only a few seconds per hole.
A Nascar driver is doing continuous arm and leg reps for two or three hours at a stretch, while pulling three g’s or more around the corners, in a car that may be as hot as a hundred and forty degrees. The LONGEST break they can expect is about twelve or thirteen seconds while getting four new tires and a tank of gas. With luck they may get to let their guard down a minute or two once or twice for a caution. A race is sometimes held up a while for rain, but that’s rare.
Think heart rates as high as a marathon runner, for as long, and then another hour, or maybe two more hours. The competitive teams all have physical conditioning programs with coaches for their drivers, meaning lots of hours in a gym.
So it seems to me that Nascar drivers, and all top level race car drivers, are athletes , although the requirements of their sport are different. They need the concentration of a baseball batter or golfer, the reflexes of a boxer, the ability to just HANG IN THERE of a long distance runner.
I notice a lot of negativity coming from some members. Stop being such a Negative Ned!
