[rollei_list] Re: OT - Sport requires a level playing field

On Sunday, January 30, 2005, at 11:15  PM, David Seifert wrote:

> Ardeshir,
>
> In response to this post and your other recent one concerning movable 
> aerodynamic devices I know I am getting perilously close to wrestling 
> with the proverbial pig but let me point out that rules in sports 
> exist largely to keep the sport competitive. The name of the game is 
> to work within the constraints. All kinds of rules exist solely to 
> keep the sport recognizable. This is sport not war. In war you do 
> whatever it takes to win. Spare no expense, bear any burden etc. Are 
> you aware that at Indianapolis there is a limit to the amount of fuel 
> you can use to go the 500 miles? Did you also know that the 
> formulation of the fuel is constrained? Changing these rules would 
> clearly make it possible for the cars to be driven faster and produce 
> a different set of outcomes. That is not the game. Rightly or wrongly 
> these are the rules of the game. I remember basketball before the 
> introduction of shot clocks and time in the lane clocks. The addition 
> of these rules had nothing to do with making to scores higher (or 
> lower) but to change the nature of the play. To keep it interesting 
> for spectators.
>
> David

I agree that a good sport requires a level playing field. But it is 
uninteresting TECHNOLOGICALLY. And in a technological field like 
automotive racing, after a while it gets uninteresting as a spectator 
sport too, because the spectators are interested as much in seeing 
technological innovation as in seeing who wins.

Initially they said about auto racing, as in horse racing, that "racing 
improves the breed". Those were the days of Sterling Moss and Manuel 
Fangio, the Mille Miglia and the Carrera Panamericana, the Silver 
Arrows and the Mercedes-Benz 500SL, Jim Clark and Colin Chapman. Not to 
mention Nuvolari and Veyron, Ettore Bugatti and W.O. Bentley before 
them. No longer is it true, at least in cars, that racing improves "the 
breed". If anything, it makes the cars worse.

Cheers!

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