NFL players are said to have big motors, and NASCAR drivers are sure to have engines. But do physical and mental similarities exist at professional levels?
They all must have drive and determination.
Confidence comes with performance and nothing can happen without ability. Hand-eye coordination is probably a common trait.
Certainly many NASCAR drivers could not play professional baseball, basketball or football. But a few might have if they had tried. Young stick-and-ball guys grew up playing ball for countless hours while most race car drivers invested their youth in go-karts, midgets and late-model race cars.
Many professional football players could not drive race cars because of size limitations. Imagine a 300-pound lineman squeezing into the tiny cockpit of a race car. Probably most football players would not want to race a car as that generally was not in their interest or experience.
It’s sometimes said by some sports fans -- outside the millions of NASCAR fans, no doubt -- that NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes. Certainly comparing the superb physical characteristics of an NFL running back or giant lineman to the generally compact body of NASCAR stars brings out obvious differences. NFL players have superior physical characteristics. Yet it takes physical conditioning to endure a stressful high-speed race for 500 miles, often four long hours at high constant temperatures. Losing a typical five to eight pounds of body weight during a NASCAR race is surely equivalent to weight loss on a typical football field, especially when considering the average temperatures of an NFL football game during fall and winter months are definitely lower than summer scorchers.
The best way to know if many or any physical and mental traits are common to the NFL and NASCAR is to ask players and drivers. They are closest to the foot speed and track speed. Fans may fill the stands and surround TV screens to watch the popular events, but that’s still observation at a distance. Here we compare quotes from Tampa Bay Buccaneers and NASCAR drivers about the physical and mental abilities in professional sports and in NASCAR.
One thing is likely. It takes a lot of speed between the ears to make it at the top levels in NFL or NASCAR. Neither sport allows for anyone to be slow to react.
The combined weight of six NFL players quoted here is 1,640 pounds. That’s a load.
The question: Some people say NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes. Do you think they are athletes?
Earnest Graham [RB, No. 34, Buccaneers - 5-9, 225 pounds]
“I think definitely, man. I think it’s all the same. I think in the work place, anywhere. You have a goal and everybody has to commit to that goal. If everybody doesn’t, you’re going to fall short of it. I think it’s the same in the household, in the family on the football field. I think it’s all the same everywhere.”
Carnell “Cadillac” Williams [RB, No. 24, Buccaneers - 5-11, 217 pounds]
“NASCAR guys? Man, that’s fatal driving a car that fast. I couldn’t do it. They’re some type of athlete.”
The question: What similarities, if any, do you see in NFL players and NASCAR drivers?
Jimmie Johnson [No. 48 Chevrolet]:
"The pressure shows up, I assume, in very similar ways needing to perform and get the job done; communication through their practices and knowing their routes and plays and how to defend and how to find a hole and when to throw it and their timing of things. There are a lot of things that correlate. Their sport is much more athletic. They are colliding body to body and propelling themselves, where we're strapped in. There is certainly a physical aspect to what we do, but I'd say ours probably requires more thinking. We're every play. It's not just a few plays and then out and defense comes in and you wait your turn and you go again. So for the full four hours, we're engaged the whole time."
Ryan Newman [No.39 Chevrolet]
“Driving the racecar, you have to be mentally tough, physically tough, emotionally tough. If any one of those three lets down, the other two are going to go right behind it. That mental toughness is just the same. It's 33 and a third across the board. They each have their own independent responsibilities or groupings. If one gets weak, it will take the other ones right down with it.”
The question: Some say NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes. Do you think they are and would you like to drive a car?
Dre Moore [DT, No. 92, Buccaneers - 6-4, 305 pounds]
“I’m from Charlotte, NASCAR country. I definitely have a lot of respect for those guys. I definitely think it’s a sport as far as athleticism It’s more than talent to drive a car and be that focused at 200 miles an hour for hours on end. So absolutely, those guys are definitely athletes.”
Jimmy Wilkerson [DE, No. 97, Buccaneers - 6-2, 270 pounds]
“I think they are athletes. To be in a car for 500 or so laps, that takes a lot of skill. I can only be in a car for a certain amount of hours, a couple of hours, and I’m ready to get out. It takes a lot of skill for them to do the shifting and wearing suits. You’ve got to stay hydrated. If they don’t stay hydrated they could very well pass out. I know it’s hot in there. I take my hat off to those guys.”
Davin Joseph [G, No. 75, Buccaneers - 6-3, 313 pounds]
“NASCAR is a sport. I think to be in a sport you have to have a certain skill. They have a heck of a skill. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t want to do it. You have to have a certain skill to be an athlete. It takes a certain skill to be a golfer, a certain skill to be a football player, to be basketball player or a job whatever it may be. It just takes different skills.”
Roy Miller [DT, No. 93, Buccaneers - 6-1, 310 pounds]
“Driving those cars, they have to be very tough.”
Comments