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Seething with hatred for the NASCAR commercials airing on my local Fox Sports network. They feature drivers talking about how rough other sports are (e.g. basketball: "There's just so much pushing and shoving under the net. Somebody's gonna get hurt." There's one for football, too, and I've heard tell of one for hockey, though I haven't seen it) intercut with shots of the crashing and banging of a NASCAR race. Tagline? "These guys are tough." The implication being: tougher than other pro atheletes.
hem.
Leaving aside the question of whether anything you do sitting down is a sport...
Let's draw a distinction, okay, between 'tough' and 'automotively suicidal.' Guys who play a full contact sport at the kind of speeds you get when you're on skates, protected not by a vehicle but by the pads on their own bodies, held up not by a vehicle but by their own legs - guys that play that game when they've got broken ribs and toes and thumbs and jaws, guys that play that game with shingles and flu and pneumonia, guys skating on knees that have been rebuilt or are overdue to be, guys that get knocked down or into the boards and get back up in an eyeblink, guys that are hit so bad their shoulder separates who then go back to the bench like they're ready to jump in for their next shift and have to be told to go back to the locker room... those guys are tough. Guys who get in a car and drive it for a long time at high speeds with collisions guaranteed and the risk of death ever-present? Those guys are automotively suicidal.
It's different.
ETA: Though I don't know as much about specific situations, I'd say this goes for football players too; none of those guys walk away unscathed, seems like. If they'd stuck to basketball and baseball, I might've been less offended.
hem.
Leaving aside the question of whether anything you do sitting down is a sport...
Let's draw a distinction, okay, between 'tough' and 'automotively suicidal.' Guys who play a full contact sport at the kind of speeds you get when you're on skates, protected not by a vehicle but by the pads on their own bodies, held up not by a vehicle but by their own legs - guys that play that game when they've got broken ribs and toes and thumbs and jaws, guys that play that game with shingles and flu and pneumonia, guys skating on knees that have been rebuilt or are overdue to be, guys that get knocked down or into the boards and get back up in an eyeblink, guys that are hit so bad their shoulder separates who then go back to the bench like they're ready to jump in for their next shift and have to be told to go back to the locker room... those guys are tough. Guys who get in a car and drive it for a long time at high speeds with collisions guaranteed and the risk of death ever-present? Those guys are automotively suicidal.
It's different.
ETA: Though I don't know as much about specific situations, I'd say this goes for football players too; none of those guys walk away unscathed, seems like. If they'd stuck to basketball and baseball, I might've been less offended.