Speed is such a shifty concept.
Usain Bolt has it to spare. His 2009 world record in the 100 meters (9.58 seconds) was more than a half-second faster than the best of Jesse Owens (10.2) 73 years earlier. We marvel at a man of such unlikely aerodynamics — Bolt is 6-foot-5 — staking claim to the title of world’s fastest human.
Yet it is estimated that Bolt, at his very top speed during his record run, hit 27 mph. That would not even make a South Carolina speed-trap cop put down his biscuit.
According to an article by Craig Sharp of the Centre for Sports Medicine, a cheetah would beat Bolt in the 100 by nearly four seconds (assuming, I guess, there was a wounded gazelle at the finish line). Yet we still can consider Bolt plenty fast enough to weigh him down with millions in dollars and Euros.
Secretariat was the epitome of equine perfection in his 1973 Belmont romp, devastating the field by 31 lengths. The great horse traveled at 37.5 mph over a mile-and-a-half. Nothing special in the era of internal combustion. Still we have waited a lifetime for a beast to stir us in the same way.
We are captivated by speed in all its purely relative forms.
Who among us hasn’t tried to imagine what it must be like to run in the open field like Calvin Johnson, get to the basket like Tony Parker, skate on the breakaway like Alex Ovechkin? All different, but all the same in that they allow us to mock momentarily the laws of gravity and resistance.
Auto racing just took that desire to the logical extreme. For all that they have done to change the packaging of stock-car racing, speed remains the reason for the Sprint Cup season.
The teams change sponsors like a hotel changes sheets. Tracks and race dates are in eternal flux. The sport has tried to appeal to all kinds of new, hipper fans. The one constant through it all, the fundamental truth of racing, is that speed thrills.
It is all about the roar of the first lap, the field taking the green flag and overwhelming the senses from the inner ear out.
And about this strange connection: Each time your favorite driver lays on the throttle, why does it seem like it’s your heart that gains speed?
And about the sight of cars going 180 mph, separated by mere millimeters. So much closer than you would dare follow with your cart at the grocery store.
Speed is what has marked Atlanta Motor Speedway as distinct — in the post-restrictor plate era, the only lap ever turned faster than the record at AMS was at Michigan International Speedway. And whether it is humans in track spikes, horses at the starting gate or rocket sleds dressed up as automobiles, there is one principle unifying them all.
Faster is always better.
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