It’s Olympics time again. In fact, I’ve got NBC’s live feed from the fencing venue on my other screen while I’m writing this column.
By the time you read this, the best athletes on the planet in a number of disciplines will have emerged from their elite fields of competition to prove themselves the world’s best fencers, swimmers, runners, throwers, flippers, shooters, skaters, etc.
But we still won’t really know who the best racer is.
For the most part, “traditional” sports have established feeder systems into higher levels of competition. Yes, I know that even in traditional stick-and-ball sports, competitors with resources have the advantage in developing and displaying their skills, but there are still plenty of young folks being drafted into the ranks of Major League Baseball each year who didn’t have the money for an aggressive Travel-Ball or showcase tournament schedule. So, I get it. The rich kids will still have an advantage, but there are college and pro scouts at high-profile high school baseball, football and basketball games just the same.
There are zero pro racing scouts anywhere looking for anyone.More than that, “pro” racing may not even have the market cornered on racing talent.
Yes, the talent level in high-profile professional racing like F1, NASCAR, IMSA, IndyCar and WEC’s premier divisions is stratospheric. But each of those exceptional athletes competing in those cars represents someone with not only the talent to be there, but the resources to display that talent. And, if we’re being entirely honest, the resources are far more important than the talent for most of the journey of a “professional” race car driver.
So the real truth is we may never know who the most talented driver in the world is. We know who some…
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