Is Car Racing an absolute waste of oil?

Given the poltical climate and the resource wars for oil as well as rising costs, do you think that NASCAR and F-1 Racing, etc. are wasteful?Is Car Racing an absolute waste of oil?
It depends on how you look at it... the most fuel efficient of race cars will get perhaps 4mpg; most will be around half that. When you compare this to even the largest of SUVs and such, it looks like a waste. You may recall back in the late 70s when IMSA changes the rules to make gas use a factor, and to encourage better fuel economy: while this meant that prototype cars then jumped all the way up to 2.5-3mpg, this also meant there was a massive increase on the automakers part about how to make cars more fuel efficient! So, at least in that case, the waste ultimately led to a massive savings.





Which leads to it being a matter of how you look at. If you look at the big picture of oil use, auto racing is a very very very tiny user. If you look at all the fuel used from all cars in a major race, it's probably going to almost be equal to the amount of fuel used for one cross country airplane trip. Or compared to those previously mentioned SUVs, if passenger cars with low mpgs averaged just 1 mpg better, it would make a massive change to world wide consumption.





Which all comes to mean that yes, Auto-racing does use up resources quicker than other normal daily use. The mitigating factors though are that there is often a return in technology development and that the overall usage is quite small. Though, if the political climate remains the same, I wouldn't be suprised to see fuel economy rules being added again to many of the major series (I know F1 has been talking about this for a little more than a year in regards to the next rules spec).Is Car Racing an absolute waste of oil?
It does use a lot of oil and gas in any race. But you could make a case that any sport used a lot of natural resources. Look how many baseball and basketball games are played. The players, coaches and equipment have to travel to and from the games. I'm sure if you calculated it all out, NASCAR used probably more but not an astronomical amount. Given it does use a lot of fuels, but it also generates a lot of money and revenue. Which is all taxed. Therefore it makes the country waaaay more money that can be used for bringing in more fuel sources or perhaps building a refinery.
It is not a waste considering many aspects.





It helps advance technology by allowing engineers to test designs that make better cars for the streets that are lighter, safer, and more fuel efficient.





Most large scale events are also highly sponsored money making forms on entertainment.





I can think of many things that are wasteful for no reason. SUVs with only one driver, the government as a whole, people that don't maintain their vehicle to optimum standards.





KC
As wasteful as any other sport. Let's stop sports as a whole. After all they take buses or planes to get from one game to the other. Alot of them use plastic, which in the raw form uses petroleum.