Imagine if bike racers were like Nascar drivers, for fat people only

Triathlon Forum
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http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?series=wc&id=2070899

CONCORD, N.C. – Robby Gordon accused Danica Patrick of having an unfair advantage in the Indianapolis 500 and said Saturday he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized.

Gordon, a former open-wheel driver now in NASCAR, contends that Patrick is at an advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick’s is lighter on the race track.

“The lighter the car, the faster it goes,” Gordon said. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier.

“I won’t race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away.”

The IndyCar Series does not consider the weight of the driver in its race specifications. The car has to weigh at least 1,525 pounds before the fuel and driver are added, and teams in Indy have estimated that Patrick will gain close to 1 mph in speed because of her small stature.

Although her rivals in Sunday’s race have said she doesn’t have a huge advantage, pole-sitter Tony Kanaan told reporters he would like the IndyCar Series to look into the issue.

“Right off the bat, a guy my size is spotting her 105 pounds,” Gordon said. “That’s the reason she’s so much faster.”

Gordon never planned to race in the Indy 500 this season, choosing instead to focus on his job as owner of a NASCAR team. Gordon had run in the 500 and NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 on the same day the past four years.

But with his startup team struggling, Gordon couldn’t afford to take his focus off NASCAR. He qualified 25th for Sunday’s race, but his car was among the fastest in most of the practice sessions.

Still, he said the No. 7 Chevrolet is searching for more horsepower from its Menard-built engines.

“We are a long ways away,” Gordon said. “But we’re still working and we will get there.”

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Danica Patrick :slight_smile:

http://img281.echo.cx/img281/7941/danica18pf.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/meatschool/17720031058445330.jpg.

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Wow, the complaining and the sour grapes from the fat-asses is pathetic. They should shut up, buckle down, and lose some weight.

And Danica is not bad looking. But if she has the racing experience I suspect she has, she will be needing a hearing aid pretty soon. This vocation (can’t really call it a sport, can I?) is not too friendly on the hearing. Mufflers add weight.

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http://img140.echo.cx/img140/7488/wtffatboy3yy.jpg

Pit Stop…

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wow this is funny i’m a big fan of formula 1 and indy racing. I saw Danica at the race at st pete and she is jockey sized - robby gordon could be in perfect shape and she’d still have 80 lbs less to carry around than he does.

and tony kanaan is an accomplished triathlete, having completed the half ironman distance. he’s in excellent shape.

in F1 the cars are weighed with the driver.

robby gordon has a point

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Using the same logic, Rujano would have to have 50 lbs of lead weight added to his bike to make it fair for the other riders.

8

this subject has come up in drag racing also, where pro stock bike rider angelle sampey is much lighter than any of the guys.

in drag racing the cars or bikes are weighed with the driver aboard, but if the driver is that much lighter, ballast can be added to the car or bike to make it meet the legal weight, and the weight can be added where it’s best for hanlding and acceleration.

you really can’t draw any analogies to triathlon.

in triathlon, a guy might be heavier than a girl, but he’s also stronger.

danica is 100 pounds lighter, but she’s not the motor.

she has a motor just as strong as any of the other teams.

the guys aren’t liking this because race car drivers haven’t historically had to be jockey sized to compete.

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All I can say is what a bunch a cry babies they are. You don’t hear cyclists crying because lighter riders have a significant advantage. You don’t hear basketball players whining because Shaq and Yao are genetic freaks. You don’t hear motorcycle racers complaining that 200 lb men aren’t on the podium.

There are no shortage of lightweight men. Take a look at the top marathoner or jockeys. If it were such a huge advantage, you would think that all the race winners would be small guys.

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If her biceps are half the diameter of the other guys, should they make the steering resistance twice as hard on all the other cars?

If one of the drivers has a walnut sized brain, do all the other drivers have to have carbon monoxide re-routed to the cockpit to reduce their advantage?

I know these guys (gender neutral) work hard and are very skilled, but it’s statements like Gordon’s that make me wonder if car racing is really a sport.

Ken

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Poor analogy…the difference is that race cars are within about 1% of each other in terms of power output available…in terms of power to weight…the only real variable is the weight…

In cycling…a guy like Rujano, weighing 105, can average 300-350W going up the 20% grades on Finestre and he’ll blast away from somebody who can hold 400-425W going up the same grade but weighing even a modest 140-145…in cycling the weight difference is usually offset by a higher power output…bringing the overall performance closer in line between riders…

The difference is VERY real for the race car drivers…when the cars weigh about 1500-1700 lbs…a 100lb difference is HUGE in terms of performance…or perhaps you’ve NEVER driven a race car at to its limits???

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Two quick thoughts that I think are being lost on folks like Robby Gordon. First, Danica is a talented driver on a very good team; which should amount to some degree of competitiveness. Second, Team Rahal and Danica Patrick are just taking advantage of the rules. The rules do not preclude the teams and team owners from looking for and hiring smaller drivers. It is not like they are breaking the rules or even stretching the bounds of the rules. To all the whiners I say grow-up.

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Once the Kenyans start to race NASCAR, we are screwed. I can hear it now Mazula Mabuntay in the pole position , at 85 pounds the lightest driver in the race.

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those of you who don’t think race car driving is a sport - find yourself a karting track , a REAL karting track , where you have to use the brakes or go off the course, not a putt-putt golf go kart track.

you’ll change your mind real friggin quick.

if you’ve never driven a real racing machine, quit talking about whether or not it’s a sport you havne’t got a clue what you’re talking about.

the comment about the kenyans is telling.

if you want every race car driver to be a 110 lb kenyan, keep calling robby a whiner

believe me, it’ll never happen.

as long as american sponsors want drivers we can relate to, this problem will be rectified.

the whole issue tarnishes danica’s acheivements somewhat.

in the indy racing league today , everything is soo tightly controlled, the parity in equipment incredible.

races 400 miles long decided by a tenth of a second.

danica isn’t that much better than the rest of the guys.

the weight advantage is real, and she didn’t earn it in the gym.

she’s just small.

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here is a question:

if this supposed advantage is so real - how come it has not surfaced until now?

surely there have been talented drivers who are lightweight before - why has the sport not gravitated to them as a matter of evolution if they offer an across the board advantage ?? this would seem to be only natural, if not inevitable over the nearly 100 year history of auto racing if it were the case.

until robbie can answer that he looks like a little girl himself for his crying, IMHO.

i think that things like suspension, tires, ground effects, et all have far more play in this and those things are independant of driver weight. if anything, putting a fat dude in the car might make that sucka stick better in the corners, hey.

finally, motorsports guys are pretty funny regarding weight. go to the SCCA races and you will see guys with literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment - persoanl pro-level travel trailer rigs and insane amounts of cash spent on some super-light gizmo or another to shave 15 grams - walking around the paddock 50-100 lbs overweight themselves.

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You may not like it but size does matter…in sports, too.
Also, if race car driver are athletes, as has been suggested, than wouldn’t the stronger, more powerful athlete have a better chance at success than one who is, oh, say, 100 pounds lighter? Seems to me it might just be a wash. BTW, why hasn’t this weight isssue come up before? Have all the drivers been the same weight all these years? Hmmm…

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Robby never denied the fact that Danica is a talented driver…just lighter…and therefore has a VERY REAL advantage in open wheel racing.

Robby Gordon is not exactly one of the pork rind eaters…in fact most of those types are gone from NASCAR…and Tony Kanaan, the Indy polesitter, is VERY fit at about 175 or 180 lbs…that’s about 75lbs he’s giving up to Danica…

The weight limit for a Indy cars is 1525lbs , for F1 cars is 1325lbs (600kg to be exact), for CART is 1600lbs. 75lbs = 4.9%, 5.6%, and 4.6% respectively… 4.9% of Indy car power (650-750HP) is 31.8HP-36.75HP, 5.6% of F1 power (825HP) is 46.2HP… though not solely accountable for differences in speed…you get the idea…

In a driving sport where the difference between first and second is often measured in the 100ths of a percent of performance…those are HUGE differences…

In Formula 1…a 10kilo (or about 22lb) difference in fuel load can mean the difference between qualifying 1st and about 15th on the grid…or in practical terms…the difference between being in for the win…and being touch and go for even scoring a point (8th place)…

Contrast that to Gordon’s native NASCAR Nextel Cup series where the weight limit is…a whopping 3500lbs…that same 75lb difference is only a 2.1% difference in total weight…in a driving sport where the comical cliche “rubbin’ is racin’” is still true…therefore making such differences not NEARLY so important…the draft and handling between pit stops account for most of the difference.

Yes, Rahal and Patrick are “taking advantage of the rules”…by default…the way the current rules are written does not account for the difference in driver weight…so good for them…but Gordon is NOT whining…he is pointing out a very real discrepancy…and one that needs correcting…

The rules need to be careful, however…just mandating a minimum weight WITH DRIVER is not necessarily fair…weight distribution and how the extra ballast (for a lighter driver like Patrick) is added to the car can make an enormous difference in how the car handles…

Let’s suppose, for instance, that we had a way to limit power output for you Clydesdale types out there…lets say you MOP AGers were somehow only able to put out 150W (or we could somehow put a power limiter on you to keep your power output in line with every other competitor out there)(and lets take the ability to build fitness higher out of the question, similar to the fact that at any one time there is a VERY small difference possible in horsepower output between racing engins), no matter whether you weighed 225lbs or 115lbs…(instead of the more real world situation where the Clydesdales are probably able to ride, say 200W at the same fitness level)…you heavier riders would be at a serious disadvantage…

Guys like Hincapie and Backstedt put out enormous amounts of power…but they also REQUIRE that amount of power to keep up with lighter riders who put out quite a bit less power…if you could somehow make all the power outputs equal (within, say, 1% or so, much like race cars)…Hincapie and Backstedt wouldn’t be able to race Cat 5, let alone race at the highest levels of bike racing…

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tribriguy that all makes some sense -

but pease explain how - if actually true - the issue has not come up until now as a matter of evolution.

THAT has not happened, and there must be a reason why, seems to me. i propose that the issue is not clearcut as you make it, and that a lighter and weaker driver gives away close to what he/she gains someplace . . . . strength, stability, smoothness . . i dunno - SOMETHING, or drivers would have been winning based on how small they are WAY before now.

in any event - IRL would be out of their minds to ‘fix’ the matter, IMHO. this issue is like the BCS in collage football. it is a headline. it puts the 500 back on the memorial day radar screen, something it has not been since the CART/IRL split. it is controversy and battle of the sexes and crying and whining etc etc. nothing could possibly be better for the sport, which has slipped from an institutuion to a niche in public concioussness.

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“if this supposed advantage is so real - how come it has not surfaced until now?”

It HAS surfaced…just not in so high a profile way…most high level motor racing has somewhat rectified the situation…IRL is significant in its difference to how the weight is measured…and Patrick is one of the first drivers whose weight difference has been of a magnitude to be of statistical significance over other performance factors…Previous female drivers have been 30lbs or so heavier than she is…most of the top level IRL drivers are in the 160-190lb range…some as light as 140…others as high as 210…drop another 35lbs off of the current lightweight and you have a VERY significant difference…one that cannot be made up for in driver skill, car handling, etc…particularly when the light driver (Patrick in this instance) seems to be on par with all the others in terms of skill…

You obviously don’t follow much motor racing, t-t-n…nor do the others who don’t seem to understand this point that Gordon made…

Maybe Gordon’s method wasn’t exactly politic in expression…but he ISN’T wrong.

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IRL WILL fix the problem. Watch and see. Capitalizing on this “battle of the sexes” thing would be a short term, carnivalesque, PT Barnum sideshow…open wheel racing needs more than that to regain the stature it had in its glory days… It has to find a legitimate way to capture the public’s imagination.

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well tribri again that makes some measure of sense.

and, i do not follow much motorsports anymore but i do know a little, my uncle and brother were SCCA natl champions a few years back.

but, now that you mention it i do recall that they had to go weigh in as a driver/car combo after a podium finish. so, as you say, perhaps IRl is just whack.

i stand corrected, bro !!! right on.