- Formula Racing
- Sports Car Racing
- Stock Car Racing
- Rallying
- Drag Racing
- Off-Road Racing
Criticism on car racing
Far and away the biggest criticism of car racing is the environmental impact that the sport has. Racing cars almost all run on gasoline and in some cases they use a lot of it. A formula one car will use over two hundred litres in the course of a race that lasts less than two hours. Not only is a lot of gas being used but there is little concern with controlling emissions. This naturally has a lot of people upset as the impact that race cars have on the environment is huge. This is getting harder and harder to accept given that it is being done for the sole purpose of sport.
There is of course an opportunity for car racing to address this issue by leading the way in developing new technology to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. After all one of the claims of proponents of racing is that it helps to develop new technology. Unfortunately very little effort is being put into this by the competitors. There has been some effort, particularly in endurance racing but for the most part other forms of racing have focused solely on making the cars go faster rather than more friendly to the environment.
One of the other criticisms of racing is the safety factor. This used to be a much bigger issue than it currently is. Prior to the seventies there was little effort put into safety for racing drivers and there were a lot of fatalities. This is not really an issue any more. While certainly there are still occasionally accidents where somebody gets killed these are actually quite rare, the safety of the cars has improved dramatically over the last thirty years.
One criticism that is starting to become an issue, at least in some racing series is the fact that the technology that is used on the cars has little in common with the cars that are on the road. Car makers spend huge amounts of money on racing in part for research and development but mostly to advertise their product. Unfortunately the results they get on the track have little relevance to the cars that they put on the road. There are actually two separate issues here. In formula one racing the technology that goes into the cars would be more appropriate to the aerospace industry than to the car industry. On the other hand in NASCAR the technology that is being used is long outdated.
One last criticism that some have is the cost of car racing. This is especially true of a series like formula one where running a team for a season can cost several hundred million dollars. Most of this cost is borne by the car makers and the shareholders in these companies are starting to wonder if the benefits are worth the expenses, a lot of them fell that they aren't.