[gusmahler]

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, so the natural ability of the elite is much closer to the average person than other major sports. So pretty much the less popular the sport, the closer to the average person the best at that sport is.

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People in this thread are absurdly underestimating the skills of race car drivers.

I took a driving school once with Skip Barber. They say that, in the racing school, the first thing they do is give all the students the racing cars while the instructor goes around the track in a Dodge Neon. The students can never keep up witht the Neon, despite the speed difference.

All the instructors I had were in their early 20s. All had been racing for 10 years at least (most racers start very early in go karts). Despite the fact that they had tons of experience and can do things with cars the average person couldn't even think of doing, none had even sniffed a chance at getting into a NASCAR or Indy Car ride. It takes a LOT of talent to become a racer on a national racing league.

So if a guy who's been racing half of his life has only a small chance of becoming a NASCAR racer, the the average person, who has never raced before, doesn't have a chance in hell of becoming a NASCAR driver in 5 years.