Seriously why is Motorsport not an Olympic sport? With the Winter Olympics this year, I watched the Old Top Gear Olympic special and wished it were the summer Olympics so I could watch the basketball, rugby, and North Korea loose to the US more, instead of being stuck with figure skating. cross country skiing, and whatever the hell that thing with the mops is called. In all honesty the only cool things in the Winter Olympics is hockey and that thing where they ski and shoot guns. The Olympics is a massive event that encompasses so many different sports. I mean if the luge, rowing, and skateboarding is a thing, why not cars? F1 reached an average of 1.87 million viewers in 2017 and around 4 million race attendees. NASCAR has an average of 75 million viewers. How many times is a luge or rowing event on national TV? Maybe once or twice a year, at night, when it's only potential viewers are drunks, the night shift, and unemployed losers living in their mom's basement. This all made me contemplate why Motorsport is not in the Olympics.
In my personal opinion it comes down to the brands. With so many different brands out there, it would be more like Ford vs. Ferrari again rather than USA vs. Italy. It comes down to brand loyalty rather than patriotism. The Olympics celebrates patriotism, unity, and watching the USA and China squash everyone in just about every event. By patriotism, I mean, we all cheer our country on and hope that our rival countries lose. But, it also celebrates unity: the fact that we are all one human race, good at doing so many different things. I mean North and South Korea came together as one Korea this Winter Olympics, that's awesome! This doesn't really work well with Audi, BMW, Lamborghini, Nissan, or Ford. They build cars that race for their brands.
There would be a way to get rid of the brand loyalty and competition. Each nation would recruit engineers to build their cars. To us the US as an example. Ford, GM, and Dodge would come together, forget the never ending F150 vs. Silverado vs. Ram argument and just build a decent set of cars for a race for the USA. The same thing goes with the UK. Land Rover, Jaguar, and Ariel engineers could set aside their differences and build a car for queen and country. This way the brands get recognition for their cars and engineers and the nation wins an event and everyone can be happy and proud of themselves.
I get it, most car companies are owned by another one that is not even their own nationality. But, Lambo is still regarded as a Italian car company despite being owned by a German company. And Dodge, an American car company is owned by a half working Italian company: Fiat (Fix It Again, Tony). If you want to forget all brand names and just want a car that has no brand affiliation whatsoever, just recruit engineers from each competing nation to design and build a car. That way its the German engineers who won or the French engineers who won (heaven forbid; with Peugeot's track record of building working cars, it would be similar to being beaten by either the blind school or the over 40 league). With this method the plucky Brits would still be doing it for queen and country, and the US would do it, well 'cause 'MURICA!! HOLD MY BEER!! YEEHAW!!
You could build cars for different events, from rally to open wheel to stock car to hill climb, and throw in drag racing for good measure. Bring in bikes too. Don't let those guys miss out on a gold medal, they are just about as a part of Motorsport as F1. There are many different events that could be competing in, just like there is more than one kind of fencing or skiing event. It doesn't have to be limited to one race either. There can be qualifiers for the Gold just like in track and swimming. That way we get to watch several different races and not just have an event start, and boom --oops you missed it--done! This would allow a well regulated fan base to watch it both live and on TV.
Drafting the teams to do the actual racing would be easy, like the US just select your Lebron, Curry, and Harden and you'll be fine. That way, you still have the best people of your nation competing on your team. The pit teams, driver, and other crew members would all be the easy part.
In my perspective, the hardest part would be the thing the world runs by: Money. Engineers and designers aren't just going to volunteer their time to make a car so that their country wins the gold medal. Soldiers volunteer to protect us, but we also pay them as well. So we should pay the engineers who make cars design cars for the Olympics. They would do it as their normal 9-5 job, cause that's what most Olympians do. Michael Phelps isn't a humble reporter for the Daily Planet as Clark Kent during the day, but at night he's "MICHAEL PHELPS, able to swim very fast and win an absurd amount of medals for it!!" Swimming is Michael Phelp's job (or was, now that's he's probably retired). If he wasn't at the Olympics, he was training for other swimming events both nationally and worldwide.
Sponsors would come from companies of that nation. It would gain that company publicity simply to have their brand name on that car. If it was a South Korean company looking to expand, it would gain it publicity on the silver screen all around the world. That way the racing teams get the necessary funding and they promote the companies on their car.
The main issue with that is why spend four years designing cars only for them to be used for two weeks out of the year.? And honestly, that's where I'm stuck. Maybe it's done with brands, but the brand's nationalities have to come together and throw away the M4 vs. A5 vs. E Class bickering, and build a car for the Fuhrer-wait no, that came out wrong-and build a quintessentially German car for the Olympics (one with a GPS that only leads to Poland, you get the picture). Maybe, the team just contracts out engineers to design a car for them and then recruit the respective drivers like the basketball team selects their roster. Maybe, I'm an idjit and got it completely wrong.
Racing brings people together. Despite racing against each other and being bitter rivals on the track, the racers respect each other for their skills (at least for the most part). Remember when Schumacher had his ski accident? The whole F1 community came together just out of respect for the man. What a better place to bring people together over racing than the Olympics, the event that already brings people together. It would just make a tighter bond. Anyways, maybe I'm just crazy. Ya'll drive fast and take chances. I'm gone.
PS: I make fun of all nations in this, including my own. So if you get offended because I made fun of yours, tough. Deal with it. Take your political correctness BS somewhere else.
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Comments (9)
A very good idea, and this from someone who doesn't watch the Winter Olympics. But I've got a solution to your patriotism instead of brand-affiliation conundrum. And that is for teams to have to compete within their own country first (Ferraris against Lamborghinis against Alfas, say), and the victor (Ferrari) makes it to the international "finals".
And the brilliant thing about all this of course, is that the Russians would be kept out of it.
That could work. but with brand ownership Lamborghini is now German and dodge is now Italian. How would that work?
Sorry, but that is like putting one of the Korean athletes in an American team because his father's aunt married an American GI.
Nice idea. And a very nice justification. I'm sure I'd watch this kind of competitions!
Thank you for the article! Original and creative.
I would for sure watch Motorsport in the olympics. Thanks for taking the time to read