What possible justification is there for legal Auto Racing in the the 21st century?

Well "Auto Racing" is much too broad. So I'm going to just defend F1/Indycar. F1/Indycar racing is the equivalent of NASA.

On the surface it wastes fuel, and even sometimes kills or maims participants and spectators. But the innovations that come out of it more than justify the risk and expense. Some would argue they didn't create anything and they may have not been the originator of things like anti-lock breaks.

But they did perfect them. Tire pressure sensors, crumple zones, tire tread compounds, on board sensor technology, traction control, and active suspension on cars are just a few things that auto racing has created/perfected. And that's just on the car itself.

Then you have things like barrier design on tracks for reducing crash impacts and road surface design. I say this and I don't even like auto racing. It's loud and mostly boring to watch.

Competition between car companies on the performance side has spurred innovation and made safer, fuel efficient, and reliable vehicles both on the track and at your house. In the case of road design they have helped make safer roads and ones that last longer.

Coming from a very American conservative viewpoint, things don't need a justification to be legal. Rather a justification must be made to render them illegal. The government should step in only when the sport's existence violates the rights of the public to a greater degree than the rights of advocates of the sport would be violated by it's being banned.1.

Waste - All sports waste something if only space and time 2. Bad driving habits - This is why in most countries racing is allowed only on designated tracks and is otherwise prohibited.(The public safety overwhelmed the right to race anywhere at any time) 3. Danger - believe it or not people have a right to place themselves in danger in the course of doing something.

All sports are dangerous. Walking out of your front door incurs a certain amount of danger. However, in the case of sports being placed in danger is voluntary, you don't have to race or go watch it.

I find racing to be boring, but I can see no reason to call it barbaric.

I bet the 70,000 people that show up for a football game use more gas than is used during a car race, particularly when they sit in the parking lot for an hour after the game is over. And how about the 120,000 people that probably drive further to get to the car race? And people have parties and get drunk, and sometimes cause accidents.

Should football be banned because of this? Lumberjacks cut down trees. This is bad for the environment.

Many lumberjacks get injured or die on the job, too. Should lumberjacking be banned? The amount of fuel used by auto racing is a drop in the bucket.

You can argue about the example that it sets as being terrible, but on the participants are willing, people are willing to pay to see it, and that's how businesses work. Why don't we ban 9v batteries, because people can lick them and get hurt? Why not ban violent movies, because some people think that they make people kill and hurt others?( violence in movies is far more pervasive than it is here in the US, but the murder and violent crime rates are vastly lower).

People need to have some level of freedom. Given that car racing is not only a business, but isn't an outright awful thing, why should that be limited? Where it can be done should be restricted, which it is, but beyond that?

The stadium is private property. People can do anything that want that's legal on private property. As it happens to be, driving a car is legal.

Even if the car isn't street legal, it is not being driven on public roads. Unless car racing were specifically outlawed, they can do it as much as they want as long as the city the location is at doesn't stop them with zoning/noise ordinances... and that's something that is dealt with when the race tracks are built. Should owning a pool be banned?

The number of drownings per backyard pool are vastly higher than the number of shootings per gun in circulation. Yes, pools are nice to have during the summer, but think of all of the children that drown! There's a reasonable balance when it comes to allowing freedom and outlawing things that are outright *bad*.

But the latter should be as rare as reasonably possible.

It is hard to tell what kind of reaction or response you were looking to generate with your own predetermined answer to your "question", but your assumptions are simply wrong. Racing, as all sports, is justified purely through the entertainment value it provides spectators and the enjoyment it provides participants. Even if absolutely no one paid to see racing, it would still take place.

The amount of fuel consumed during a race is minuscule compared to the fuel used to transport any sports team (including racing) to the various venues. How many football (soccer) teams are, at this very moment, flying across continents for matches? I cannot think of an athletic contest where the participants are not in physical danger of some sort, very often it can be lethal.

Anyone serious about auto racing spends as much money on safety equipment and preparation as they probably do on any other single element. Starting with the car design and ending with the crews at the event. Nothing is overlooked and racing vehicles experience far, far fewer deaths per mile traveled than any road going vehicle.As for participants, I am positive that over any 5 year period of time, more fans are killed by idiots football matches than at an auto racing venue.

Finally you say it promotes "bad driving habits". If you mean that precision car control, situational awareness and practiced reflexes are "bad" then I suppose we have nothing to talk about. These athletes are symphony conductors on a razors edge of control, completely focused on what they are doing.

Think about that the next time you are eating your pastry and dreaming about your weekend on the commute to work. Every driver in the world could learn many good habits from racing drivers.

Your question assumes that things need to be "justified" by more than the market for entertainment. I'm not sure if you apply that measure to all forms of entertainment (reality shows) or just those you deem barbaric (as per your list). If "barbaric" is you standard, then the list you provide has this in common: unwilling animals/participants are raised and trained in order to kill/harm each other.

Fox hunting doesn't meet this criteria, on the other hand I don't believe it has been made illegal, certainly not in Virginia. Anyway, auto racing does not share these qualities. The participants are more than willing, and are paid well.

The purpose is certainly not to harm or kill anyone. There are many other activities that are wasteful in the other ways you describe, but probably wouldn't make your list of "barbaric sports". Swimming leads to many deaths every year (over 800,000 according to the link below).

Swimming pools are wasteful uses of water, and environmentally problematic as well. Maintaining beaches certainly interferes with the natural course of the environment. Then there's all the destruction to coral reefs, etc.Many other sports and activities would show similar problems.

Auto Racing should be kept because it keeps getting safety advancements. Those safety advancements are then put on highways and help people stay alive. Banning auto racing is like banning football for giving people long term injuries.

No, it most certainly should not. The fuel is not "wasted". It is used for exactly the purpose the people or companies that bought it intended it to be used for.

I don't want ANY piece of government telling me what I can and can't spend my money on, or what I can and can't do with products that I've spent my money on. Racers know what they're getting into. The government does not have a right to "protect me from myself" at the expense of my free will and decision-making.

Spectators who sit in the green middle know what they're getting into, and sign a waiver to prove it. See above. Cockfights and Dogfights are banned to protect those who CANNOT protect themselves, due to less intelligence and less rights.

Human being who CHOOSE not protect themselves by engaging in potentially unsafe activities are not subject to government oversight of their decisions. Following your logic, all of the following should be outlawed: * Vacation travel - the fuel is "wasted" and not serving a purpose * Fast food - it kills people * Movies and TV shows- they frequently show people with bad driving habbits.

Who cares I like racing on the weekends and that enough for me. Its an sport nobody shut down baseball or wrestling because of steroid used and that more dangerous then racing. But if they had a bad ass electric race series I'd probably like has well.

For all my fellow weekend worriers keep on burning.

I think all the fuel wasted by all auto racing everywhere in the world today can't exceed the waste of human life energy and natural resources perpetuated by the bureaucracy that is the United States Government.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.