Is there actually a fan base of people who follow air racing? OK, there have to be, or else the sport wouldn’t exist, so that’s kind of a flawed question…right? Are air racing fans usually pilots themselves? I would imagine that they would have to be, simply because I can’t see how an average person would just become a fan of air racing. It’s one of those things that has hardly any mainstream coverage at all.
What about jet-ski racing?
Not any more than yachting. There will always be a substantial proportion of race fans who own, or want to own, the vessels being raced, or something like them. When was the last time you saw Olympic coverage of Soling, for example. We’re lucky to see the results in the newspaper. Ditto the shooting events.
What air racing is, is slightly barbaric. In the 1930s it was huuuge. Problem is, every damn year, people got killed.
Well, the Red Bull Air Race series features ten races over seven months on four continents. I doubt that there are many fans who go to all of them, but with six in Europe, I’d guess that there may be hundreds or even thousands who manage to see two or more.
You don’t have to play baseball, football, or any other competitive sport to enjoy it as a spectator, so why would you expect only pilots to enjoy watching air racing? Especially in this latest incarnation, which combines aerobatic performances with pure racing.
The videos (and the occasional TV ads I’ve seen) demonstrate what an incredible spectacle it is. If there was a race within a couple hundred miles of me, I’d probably make an effort to go, and thanks to this thread, I’ve just found out that I can watch it in HD on the Comcast Sports Network. Woot! (I’m not a pilot.)
I was about to say that this no longer true, but according to the Wiki page on the Reno Air Races, three pilots died just last year. :eek:
However, Wiki also says that there have been 18 deaths is 44 years of racing. Although this is not great, consider that up until the 1970s or so, it was estimated that about half of all pro auto racers died on the track. In this context, air racing is not all that barbaric.
Unlike the Red Bull series, Reno is side-by-side racing, which is obviously inherently more dangerous. In the Red Bull series, the pilots go through the course one at a time. AFAIK, there have been no accidents or injuries in the Red Bull series.
About the jet ski racing, I got nuthin.
Something else I forgot to mention: when an air race happens over the river in the center of a major city, tens of thousands of people who live and work in the area will be drawn into it, even though the vast majority have probably never heard of air racing before. Most won’t pay attention to races at other cities, so they don’t constitute a “following” per se, but they’re part of the audience for that event.
Ignorance fought. Thanks.
My best guess is that air racing is not popular because it doesn’t have a lot to do with people’s lives. Everyone’s driven a car, and many have played some kind of team sport. Few outside the aviation community have even briefly been behind the stick of a plane.
Also, I’m surprised as hell it’s on TV anywhere.
Do you have a site for that? Even for the times and safety equipment, that seems extraordinarily high. Would that be a particular series? I know that can’t be true for stock cars.
I don’t have a specific cite, although I believe I have seen that claim in more than one history of racing. The original sources may have been wild speculation or macho posturing, but for a start, here is a Wiki list of 278 Deaths in Motorsports in various series.
Keep in mind that it wasn’t until the 1970s and '80s that anyone started getting scientific about in-car safety systems: helmets, safety harnesses, fire-retardant clothing, etc. Seatbelts weren’t common in race cars before the 1950s or '60s, nor were fire suits, and pre-1960s helmets were laughable.
Into the 1960s and '70s the cars themselves were rigid tube frame construction, built so strong that in a wreck they transferred all the force to the driver, usually with tragic results. It’s only been in the last couple of decades that they’ve designed the cars to break apart on impact, dissipating the forces absorbed by the driver.
And it’s only in the last decade or so that they’ve started designing or re-designing tracks for greater safety. The SAFER barrier, improved run-off areas, and higher catch fences have improved safety for the drivers and spectators. Racing has come a long way from 1955, when a driver and 82 spectators were killed in a crash at Le Mans.
So the 50% claim may be off somewhat, and it is probably not easily verifiable, but it’s undeniable that through most of its first century, auto racing was one of the most dangerous sporting activities ever, and perhaps the most dangerous.
My husband races jet-skis.
I think the last World Finals for jet-skiing in Lake Havasu was shown on one of the alternate ESPN channels. We don’t have tv so I’m just going on what I was told.
The spectators are usually other racers, family/friends, or people who just happened to wander by. At Lake Sammamish’s Tastin’ and Racin’ event, I doubt many of the spectators knew that the jet skis would be having races there as well.
In my opinion, it’s a dying sport. It’s too expensive and no real support for the skiers to keep their interest. I get the impression that it’s a bigger draw in Europe.
Jet Ski racing enjoyed a little blip of popularity when Vanilla Ice did it for awhile shortly after the peak of his “Ice Ice Baby” fame.