Warning: Uninformed opinion ahead.

Although I work for an automotive company, I know very little about racing and care very little about Nascar. However, when Michael Waltrip’s current scandals appeared in several of my RSS feeds, I decided to look further into it. Apparently, Waltrip and several other drivers were penalized for having a “foreign” substance in their engines, most likely some variant of jet fuel to increase their cars’ power output.

Why is this a problem?

I can see how athletes using body-destroying steroids can set a bad example for aspiring kids, but why must one prevent cars from juicing? One can go down to the neighborhood hardware store and do what these people are getting busted for. As a member of the audience, I would want to see cars running at their peak performance pushing the limits of science and engineering.

My guess as to why they limit the cars are:
1. Safety - If baseball players are willing to inject performance enhancing drugs into their body, I’m sure drivers will use fuels that are dangerously too powerful.
2. Money - If there aren’t any restrictions on the vehicles, people will spend as much money as possible to design the fastest cars. Of course you could just limit the money teams can spend like Basketball and Football. Salary Caps for NASCAR: not a bad idea.

Labels: sports