For the large majority of motorsport
fans, masculinity is a defining factor. This (regrettably)
male-dominated sport is riddled with references to the good old days,
“when men were men” and what have you. Older motor racing fans
more often than not lambast modern drivers as Prima Donnas, and call
them weak because of their apparent “cushioning”; modern safety
standards combined with the impeccable construction of today's racing
cars means that Motor racing, while still harbouring an element of
danger, is a much safer environment than as recent as 20 years ago. This therefore over-protects
drivers and causes them to become weak-minded PR machines as opposed
to “real men”, right?
Now, don't get me wrong. I think that
today's racing world is dominated by over-sanitisation, politics and
inter-driver spats. But the notion that real men raced back in the
day because the cars were petrol tanks on wheels and death was around
the corner every step of the way is plain stupid.
You've got to
realise that modern drivers have it just as hard as they did 50 years
ago – just in different areas. We often think that modern racing
cars are easy to drive, PlayStation-controlled machines, but this is
not the case at all. The standard of competition is much, much
higher, and one has to be on the limit for every corner of every lap.
There is much less of a margin for error, but when you do get it
wrong, the greatest penalty you can expect is a bruised ego, and a
broken car. Before at least the 1970s, the limit was not reached
anywhere near as much, but once a driver went over it, they were
often as good as dead.
It's the simple fact that driver deaths
don't happen as much anymore that is the defining factor. It enrages
me to think that there are people out there who put down modern
drivers simply because of the fact that they are more cocooned. By
doing this, people are undermining recent leaps and bounds in safety,
and the work many highly talented individuals have done to achieve
this. Worse still, with the recent deaths of Dan Wheldon and Marco
Simoncelli – two very highly regarded competitors in their
respective fields – the notion that Safety Makes People Pussies®
has been brought up once again.
Consider this comment from a YouTube video about Valentino Rossi's
helmet tribute to Marco. By the way, this is unedited:
“Anyone
that wants to show there repects by putting a banner out, Sticker on
the bikes or the helmet Rossi has is fair enough. No more talk of
parade laps n that tho. All this attention is just gonna attract the
health and safety nutters. Lets keep this one of the few remaining
sports that have an element of danger. Look at the freaks in F1. That
stopped being a man's sport a long time ago.
”
...Words fail me.
Okay, this was about
MotoGP, which in my opinion is nigh-on impossible to be made any
safer than it is. And I would agree that Motorcycle racing is one of
the only sports left in which there is an ever-present threat of
death. But using Marco's tragic death as a booster for your argument
about danger equalling manliness? I am disgusted.
The problem with the
human mind – moreover, the human male mind – is that (more
often than not) facing danger is equated to bravery. I acknowlege
that this attitude was the one more suited to motor racing pre-1980s
– the threat of death on track was considered a part of the deal,
and there was no escaping it. You would have to have had nerves of
steel to drive the old Grand Prix cars at speed in any condition. But
even more inescapable is the fact that there is a sensitivity
required to grasp what was actually happening – that competitors,
many great ones, were dying needlessly when measures could easily be
put in place to make sure they lived to fight another day. A
well-covered example of this is three-time F1 World Champion Jackie
Stewart, who initiated the first real safety measures in F1 after
watching his friends get killed on track one by one and nearly dying
himself.
And herein lies my
main point. What we are dealing with here is clouded judgment. We are
dealing with human beings. Human beings who love and are loved by
their families, friends and fans. We need to get rid of the rose
tinted spectacles and make sure that today's racing drivers continue
to do what they do best without their remarkable lives being cut
short.