Like for example, obviously I’m a sports fan, but through all of sports the one thing I love watching more than anything is great baseball pitchers. Watching how much movement they can put on a ball is just fun to watch.
Like for example, obviously I’m a sports fan, but through all of sports the one thing I love watching more than anything is great baseball pitchers. Watching how much movement they can put on a ball is just fun to watch.
Motorsports of all kinds are remarkable to me, most prominently the rally tours of the 80’s.
The fans and journalists were crazy, the engineers were crazy, the drivers were crazy too.
Something about watching those old hot-hatches flick around a hairpin while people jump in front of the car just sparks something deep inside my heart… it’s the Ultimate Extreme.
Bonus to alpine ski/snowboard. Those POVS are ridiculous.
I don’t give a fuck about more conventional sports. I find them to be primitive and have no idea how people get so swept up by them.
Came here to mention rally, Group B in particular. As well as things like the Isle of Man TT.
Everything about them is just a big middle finger to the bubblewrap mindset of today, whether that’s a good thing will depend on individual perspectives but it certainly makes it more raw and exciting as a spectator.
Its a difficult balance to have. No one wants to see anyone killed, but everyone wants to see risks being taken and the drivers wrestling with the machine beasts. Its incredible. But at some point it just gets too dangerous. Like with Group B. The Henri Toivonen interview before his crash is pretty chilling, he explains that the stages are so long, the cars so fast that its impossible to keep concentration for the whole time. Then he sadly proved himself to be correct.
As much as I love Group B, banning it was the correct thing to do. I will never say that the safety aspect has gone too far, but it has made things a bit… boring. I still watch F1, Rally, WEC and I think its awesome. But its different than what it was. Like it wasn’t too long ago when F1 cars looked nervous going on a straight. I vividly remember Mika Häkkinen bombing down the Hockenheimring and the car just wouldn’t keep in a straight line. These days the cars look like they are on rails. I’m gonna stop myself before I start ranting about this years cars.
Motorsports can also be enjoyed by most anyone from their home, with sim games. The g-forces are obviously not there, but the inputs are remarkably accurate to life. It’s fascinating seeing drivers brake and turn at exactly the same points on track where I did in the game.
Personally I’m partial to mods of 60s-70s cars for Assetto Corsa. It’s lots of unabashed fun with the wobbly suspension.
Ding ding! Guess what I gre up on? Racing games!
Yeah, I’ve played lots of classic NFS back in the day, but since its physics was always pretty outlandish, the sports aspect of racing didn’t quite click for me. It’s only relatively recently-ish that I picked up Gran Turismo on PS Vita and proper simulators on the desktop, which is when I learned about the racelines, setups and whatnot — and started understanding what drivers are doing and following F1.
Curiously, there’s a simple pen-and-paper game called Racetrack, which simulates the physics of racing better than NFS.
I love watching wingsuit povs.