I found myself embroiled in a twitter fight this week and I really just don’t understand it at all.  What is the allure of racing?  Any kind of racing?  I just don’t get it.

NASCAR, Indy, Horse, Olympic, bicycling.  Who wants to watch a car go in circles for 500 miles?  Who wants to watch a bunch of horses run around in a circle once?  Who wants to watch a bunch of people ride a bike through France or in a circle multiple times?  Who wants to watch people run in a circle?  No one will ever be able to tell me what the big deal is.

Auto racing is just ridiculous on so many levels.  Driving 200 MPH and crashing into walls is a good thing?  Wasting all that gasoline on cars just driving in circles for no reason? Wasting tires?  The amount of pollution that is going into the air at those events?  It has to be the wrecks that people are sticking around to see.  That makes it even sadder to me to see how popular it is.  I can watch cars drive by just looking out my window.  I see cars driving every time I go outside.  Why would I need to go to a race track or turn on my tv to watch it?  Drivers wear diapers and go to the bathroom on themselves so they can keep driving to win a race.  It’s disgusting.  It’s pointless.  It’s a waste of resources.  What is even more baffling to me is that while living in Kentucky, they would air races on the freaking radio!!!  Who is the hell wants to LISTEN to a race on the radio?!?!?!  “Yes ladies and gentlemen, you will never believe this but here at the Daytona 500, we have cars going in a circle!  They are still going in a circle.  Car X is in the lead as they are still going in a circle” and this goes on for hours!!!!  You have got to be kidding me.

Sticking with my time in Kentucky, let’s switch gears to the Kentucky Derby.  Louisville starts celebrating in April and even earlier really.  Parades.  Fireworks.  Food wagons.  Over a month of celebrating and partying for a TWO MINUTE horse race!  Lately, it seems like every year they end up killing an injured horse on the track at the conclusion of the race.  Horses are beautiful animals.  ANIMALS!  However, according to ESPN, horses can be listed among the greatest ATHLETES of the century.  What?  I can at least semi-understand the allure of horse racing due to the large amount of gambling being done but that still doesn’t make it any less of a waste of time in my eyes.  I hated the Kentucky Derby before I lived in Kentucky.  After living there and seeing how ridiculous everyone acted for over a month leading up to it, I now DESPISE the Kentucky Derby and all horse racing.  I rarely agree with the vigilant extremists in PETA but I would totally support any effort they made to bring an end to horse racing due to the cruelty of drugging the horses and pushing them so hard that they end up hurt and killed for a race.

Olympic races of all kinds might be the worst of all.  Swimming, running, biking, blah blah blah.  I don’t care about them any other time, I’m not going to care about them for two weeks every four years because they are wrapped in a flag.  I cannot put into words how happy I am that Chicago lost their bid to host the Olympics.

Lastly, I’m going to rant against cycling.  How many Americans can name more than TWO cyclists in history?  I can name Lance Armstrong and Greg LaMond.  That’s it.  That’s the list.  I wish I didn’t know that many.  The “sport” with the worst doping problem in the world…all to be able to ride a bicycle longer and faster…mostly in France.  Is there any other major bicycle race outside of Tour de France and the Olympics?  I honestly don’t know.  Yet all this attention is paid to Lance Armstrong.  I just don’t get it.

I’m done ranting against racing of all sorts.  I don’t really want anyone to try to answer the questions posed in this blog.  No answer will make me suddenly change my mind and decide that watching a person, car, bike etc going in a circle is exciting.