Any sport that could conceivably be replaced by an equally-accurate video game is not really a sport.
The thing about racing is this...whatever floats your boat, it's a pretty thin line between what you like and this hi-larious display of Darwinism: ...This shit is quite popular down south, and I've seen it on ESPN. I'm not saying NASCAR is that bad, but go to a NASCAR event and just hang out and talk with the nice, sane and readily employed people that attend them. Not a single one of them are not but completely shitfaced and already borderline drooling retards, and not one car is left in the 100,000 space area after the race. Just an ocean of empty, tire-flattened Keystone.
Let's not devolve this into a "sport / not a sport" shit fest. Let's do away with the semantics and consider it competition. But video games will NEVER replace real racing. Ever. If you don't get that, then you've never actually raced, and are talking out of your ass in some theoretical/academic capacity. That's me in car 45 on the starting lap of a race. I won that race by 0.001 seconds. I can pull 2+ G's braking and almost 2 G's in a turn, and passengers are so freaked out that they have issues breathing. Go for one hot lap in a real race car with a real driver, and you'll quickly understand that Meat Space will win, every time. When it comes to Nascar, the old-school days were the shit. The moonshiners racing their cars, with a ton of cheating and fun. (Go read Marc Donahue's book The Unfair Advantage for an awesome read, regardless of whether you're into racing or not). The latest shit is crap. I still laugh my ass off when I remember an early interview I saw with Richard Petty, when the reporter asked him "when do you think racing was invented?" His response, "when they made the second car".
I dunno I helped the Rebels bomb the death star once on Star Tours at Disneyland and it was pretty intense.
See, I understand that real race driving is way funner than video game racing (I've done a hotlap, and done a couple of laps in a Rally spec Subaru Impreza WRX STi - and played a fair number of computer games). But watching either one as a passive spectator still seems like a great way to put yourself into a coma. Also, if I'm going to be impressed by the people operating the vehicle - The Red Bull Air Race pilots trump the fuck out of car drivers. Anything up to 12 G's in practical race conditions with a top speed going straight forward of 426kms... way more awesome. Still boring and unwatchable unless you're high. But better than car racing by a long stretch.
That's the nice thing... to each their own. For instance, I can't stand watching professional sports (except for MMA). Hockey, football, baseball, whatever... have no desire to watch it on TV. Occasionally, I'll go see it live, but I won't go out of my way to do so. There will be a few sports that are just crazy fun to watch. Red Bull Air Racing is way up there, as is the Reno Air Racing. Having been a glider and power pilot since I was 16, I have a huge appreciation for what they can do. Fucking Nuts doesn't begin to cover it. Same goes for sidecar motorcycle racing: I'd consider them to be an occasional watching experience though, it's not like I'd follow it for the season and know/follow the drivers/pilots, or the championship standings. A lot of it comes down to what your own interests are, obviously. I'm into car racing, so I enjoy and appreciate watching other automobile racing. Some series I follow closely as I've competed against and know the teams personally.
Am I seriously looking at a picture of one guy riding a bike whilst the other one is hanging on for dear fucking life? And this is an organized sport? WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME THIS EXISTED??
How do you know you have ruined the innocence of a woman? Kuhjäger: We have to buy all the children cousins gifts for Christmas. They are the only ones who get gifts in the family at Christmas. But what do you give a 3 year old? Jägerette: AIDS.
Watching most sports, from my point of view, is relatively boring. I'd rather be doing than watching (sorta really like porn, now that I think of it). The fun in sports is the involvement. Watching car racing? Yawn. Unless there's a high probability of a crash. Actually getting into the car? Yes please. I've done an off road rally course. What I was doing would have looked boring as shit. Doing it was insane. Which brings me to the other unless: if it's something you do, watching it becomes more interesting. A good example of that is MMA. Someone who knows nothing about grappling tends to become very bored, very quickly once the fight gets on the ground. Someone who appreciates what the fighters are doing, does not. Applying all that theory, if I ever do get to bomb the death star with the rebels, I'm gonna blow a hole in the crotch of my funky orange flight suit.