“a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina”. That is Webster’s definition of athlete. The Definition uses the phrase “or games” and “or stamina”. Athough one may argue that racing may not require physical strenth or agility, it definately requires stamina. Therefore, according to Websters, racers ARE athletes.

In HS I wrestled, boxed, played football and baseball, ran track and field (800m, 1 mile and Pole vault) after HS i went on to play JuCo Baseball, served for 6 years in the infantry and combat engineers (I was a RTO) and after all that then did a little dirt track raceing. I would say even as a corner in FB I wasnt required to be in near the shape I had to be in to wrestle and even after 6 years in the service nothing I have ever done has rattled my nerves like trying to maintain the perfect balance of speed and grip on a dirt track. I dare anybody to get the juices flowing then try to make some lefts and see what that lactic acid does to your shoulders and arms then think about 300 laps in 150 degree temps and fighting to keep the mental edge always worring about somebody else gettin loose and taking you out or maybe just messing with your aero balance.

I dont care for JJ personally I feel my fav driver could bennifit from shedding a few lbs (Ryan Newman) but if you look at some of these drivers JJ, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, 55 yr old Mark Martin you will see that they could probably run 3/4 of the seattle seahawks into the ground in those dreaded 2 a days. NASCAR is the pinicle of all motorized raceing the best and brightest from all the other leagues (F-1, Indy, Moto-X) have tried to come and conqure and while some have had some success most have failed and that should only go to show what an amazing accomplishment it has been for Jimmy Johnson to do what he has done.

As lockout football has shown us even a stellar football player (and often ridiculus loudmouth) like Ochocinco cant just walk into another sport and be the man (and he has long talked of his undying love of soccer even going to say that he choose football only cause it guaranteed a bigger payday). His Airness tried his hand at baseball (I’ll admit baseball takes far less athletic prowes than basketball) and failed miseribly. There has only been one 2 sport athlete ever considered to be a dominant presence in both (nothing against Neon Deion but his batting in baseball left much to be desired and his unwillingness to support the run in football I consider to be big knocks against him making him) and his 2 promiseing careers were ripped away from the world with one tradgic play (I think that there would have been verry few sports Bo Jackson wouldnt have been the best ever at). Anyway this shouldnt be a thesis just a crusty old man saying unless you are a top dog in your respective sport feel free to not talk smack. Jimmy watch out cause just like your rookie year I and crossing my fingers Newman is the one to knock you off your pedestal but untill that time comes you are the man.

BTW those of you choosing to spout off with your racist babble should be hung and quartered, I come from a family of 13 kid 10 of which were adopted by a loveing white couple, I was the lone adopted whitey being the bastard son of a trucker and a stripper, I have a sister from Korea, a brother and sister from India, a brother and six sisters from Mexico and in my time in the Army have spent time in hasty positions and commo trucks with people of most every race/creed and color and can I say that while there are some idiot banger latino and black types the majority of bigotry I have experienced has been a byproduct or backlash originating from some piece of trash caucasion that has had nothing better to do than run his/her mouth. There are ignorant dummies everywhere you go but the world would be a far better place if people stopped judging due to a few imbicles missrepesenting. Stop hating Muslims cause of a small band of terrorists, stop hating blacks because of random bunch of football playing gangbangers, stop hating Mexicans cause their willing to come into the US and do the jobs most of us dont want for ridiculusly cheap pay and stop hateing me cause of a few uneducated Klan members that take every chance they get to stand up on their soap box and talk not about how they dont have work cause they’re to lazy to get a job but prefer to talk about how they dont get unemployment because there are others from other walks of life that cant get jobs due to unequal educational opportunities and have no other options when it comes to feeding their loved ones