Motorsports should get fair shot

As residents of the metropolis that is New York City, it’s hard to imagine cars as anything other than bricks in mile-long walls of gridlock. Automobiles are seen as a necessary evil, called upon as cabs when the subway is too inconvenient. Many wouldn’t dream of owning one here, and all efforts are directed towards reducing their harmful effects on the environment. Within a few years, all cabs in the city fleet will be gas-electric hybrids. Parking prices are exorbitant no matter where you go in Manhattan. And proposals for congestion pricing are being kicked around, so as to stem the “invasion” from the suburbs.

To the more hot-headed among us, cars are seen as vestiges of the less progressive—those unable to see the efficient and sophisticated lifestyle associated with city life. One particular institution that bears much of this hostility is motor sports. To put it impolitely, many see it as hicks wasting gas by driving around in circles. Why anyone would enjoy watching 500 laps of the activity is, frankly, beyond the imagination of many.

Some may deny car-racing to be a sport: after all, can something really be a sport if your movement isn’t even powered by your own limbs? But what is undeniable is the degree to which the competition is intertwined with the cultural fabric of the country. Much as baseball represents America’s ability to forge a cohesive unit out of many different individual self-interests, the car represents the freedom of movement that has been the foundation of the nation’s historical expansion. While nowhere near as romantic as mountain men on horseback, the horseless carriage is the heir to the lineage, the enabler behind our ability to expand beyond immediate horizons.

That’s fine, one may concede, but what has any of that to do with competition? The saying goes that the first race began when the second car was built, and I suspect that the reality does not lag far behind the idiom. Continuing the tradition of one-upmanship initiated by homesteaders racing to claim their piece of the earth, modern autos push each other to go faster, corner better, and hug the road more closely. Even the reviled stock car racing can be seen as a technological marvel, a showcase of what one can do with an off-the-shelf frame.
The automobile institution is not without its fair share of problems. Clinging on to the country’s past may cost us its future, as the US’s fuel bill relentlessly shoots upward. A few more price shocks and the rest of the country will come to see it from the New Yorker’s view, that hybrids light the way to the future. This is a necessary evolution, no less than the original switch from horse-drawn to horseless. But a desire for performance beyond the necessary has already manifested itself in this brave new world. I have high hopes for Tesla Motors, and the ability of its electric sports car to challenge what an eco-friendly car should be.

Next time you are out of the city, cast aside your liberal sensibilities just temporarily, and consider taking a joyride. Push your car to the next valley, mountain, or state line. You may be surprised at how enjoyable it is.

Charles Young is a senior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science majoring in applied math.
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