Hard to quantify sports question

[JACK CUST]

Best example I can think of is 01 team. Last year and quite a few years before that it was driven by Joe Nemecheck who consistently ran mid-pack (think mid-20's at best) or worse while rarely running up front. This season the car has been driven on a part-time basis by Mark Martin who has ran up front nearly every race he has been in. Now, the team was bought out by new owner in between those seasons who did spend some more money on resources, but it is hard to say how much effect that would have over the course of one short offseason. Perhaps mitigating that concern somewhat, Joe Nemecheck was moved to the 13 team (same owner as 01) and has ran mid-pack or worse, usually worse, and failed to qualify for a few races. But... the 13 team was unsponsored so likely received lesser share of the car owner's resources than the 01 team. In fact, the 13 team recently folded and the 01 team was merged/sold to a different organization. So you see what I mean by endless caveats.

Anyway, with that and the rest of their careers in mind, I think we can take some very simple educated guesses at the talent level of these two drivers: Mark Martin = likely one of the best of all time. Joe Nemecheck = likely fairly mediocre at best.

edit: you do run into similar problems as you do trying to evaluate QBs in football, except there is no nifty DVOA-style NASCAR stat

[Dudd]

[ QUOTE ]
Race car drivers are less likely to have more far innate skill than the average human as compared to say, basketball players, because so many more people try the latter.

If everyone in the US wanted to be a NASCAR driver growing up and got the opportunity to try, the field would be totally different. In basketball, not so much - people have a much better idea of where they stand there.

Edit - I see that I didn't really respond to the question. Whoops.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this does answer the question though. Probably 90% of the people I know at some level have played basketball, football, baseball, some sport. So, the elite of the elite at those sports are drawn from a pretty large pool. I have never met anyone who raced, not dirt track, stock cars, nothing. Maybe this is a regional thing, I'm from upstate NY, who knows, but like you said, it's beyond questioning that the talent pools from which the racing elite are chosen is significantly smaller than something like basketball, 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.

[MCS]

[ QUOTE ]
If you give the avg guy off the street 5 years to learn, and similar support to Tony, how close do you get to his results?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would guess "nowhere close." A lot of top racers have been dominant since they were young, and while racing isn't as commonplace as say basketball, there are enough people trying it that the cream should rise. It isn't an unknown sport, and there is plenty of local competition.

I agree that Nextel Cup guys are probably closer to Average_American than NBA players are, but they're still incredibly awesome. Top NASCAR drivers make a ton of money. The competition to get there has to be fierce.

[NajdorfDefense]

People have no idea how insanely hard it is to be a successful pro athlete.

http://www.davebarry.com/president/d...lumns/long.htm


Dave Barry wrote one of the greatest articles on this, featuring NBA's Grant Long. Hilarious and so true.

'

Even the most marginal NBA player is an absurdly better athlete than an ordinary person. When basketball people say that Grant Long can't shoot, can't pass, can't dribble, what they mean is: He can shoot, pass and dribble better than you, better than anybody you know, better than all but a few hundred people in the world. Long's jump shot is so bad, by NBA standards, that his team never runs a play designed to set him up for it; but you could practice your jump shot every day forever and still never beat him in a game of Horse. '

[DrewDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Anyway, I think golf is a sport where coaching and practice practice practice are far more important than "talent." There are some really great golfers (Justin Leonard, Tim Herron, to name 2) who seem to have zero athletic talent and just grew up on the range.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know anything about those guys but I disagree with the idea that golf somehow takes less talent and relies more on other stuff than other sports.
I could practice golf 15 hours a day every single day with the very best instructors ever and I would still have absolutely zero chance of being even remotely competitive even at whatever level is 1 or 2 notches lower than the PGA level.
Same goes for most golfers imo.


I don't see what the fact of them being good from having grown-up at the course has to do with anything.
Lots of people who 'grew up' at the ball-field or in the ice-rink or at the basketball-court or whatever end up being good at that sport.
Lots of people don't too of course.

FWIW - I had my first set of golf-clubs when I was 6 or 7 or so and I am still the world's worst golfer no matter how hard I tried to not completely suck.


Also, I don't know anything about NASCAR or fishing.
But regarding NASCAR, I'm pretty sure Stewart would end up holding his own decently even with a different team and that some other drivers would not do so great given Stewart's team.
Not unlike how Peyton Manning would still be a good QB on a different team.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I think you have to have SOME talent in any sport, and you have to work hard to be a pro no matter how talented you are.

[DrewDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
I could practice golf 15 hours a day every single day with the very best instructors ever and I would still have absolutely zero chance of being even remotely competitive even at whatever level is 1 or 2 notches lower than the PGA level.

[/ QUOTE ]

BTW, how do you know this?

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]
Even the most marginal NBA player is an absurdly better athlete than an ordinary person. When basketball people say that Grant Long can't shoot, can't pass, can't dribble, what they mean is: He can shoot, pass and dribble better than you, better than anybody you know, better than all but a few hundred people in the world. Long's jump shot is so bad, by NBA standards, that his team never runs a play designed to set him up for it; but you could practice your jump shot every day forever and still never beat him in a game of Horse. '

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know anything about Grant Long, but it doesn't seem to me that every NBA player is better than an average person at every basketball skill. I have basically no basketball skills whatsoever, but I think think I could shoot free throws better than Ben Wallace with a little practice.

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
, 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.

[/ QUOTE ]
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.

[DrewDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Even the most marginal NBA player is an absurdly better athlete than an ordinary person. When basketball people say that Grant Long can't shoot, can't pass, can't dribble, what they mean is: He can shoot, pass and dribble better than you, better than anybody you know, better than all but a few hundred people in the world. Long's jump shot is so bad, by NBA standards, that his team never runs a play designed to set him up for it; but you could practice your jump shot every day forever and still never beat him in a game of Horse. '

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know anything about Grant Long, but it doesn't seem to me that every NBA player is better than an average person at every basketball skill. I have basically no basketball skills whatsoever, but I think think I could shoot free throws better than Ben Wallace with a little practice.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's probably true for FTs but nothing else. And it is true about the overall level of talent in the NBA being just absurd.

I remember back in the 80s, the Rockets had this scrub 12th man forward named Dave Feitl, a big goofy white guy who never ever played. I once went down to Fonde Recreation Center (legendary pickup spot, lots of great players there), and Feitl was running with 9 guys who were all 6'7" or taller and all looked chiseled out of granite. Feitl completely dominated the game, scored at will, grabbed every rebound, nailed 3s, etc. And this guy was one of the worst players in the NBA, yet he was without question the best player in a very high level pick up game. It's just a whole different level.

[Dids]

[ QUOTE ]
.

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

Extend out the timeline then. Seems like your argument is still about practice and not innate ability.

I would also wager that there's other factors (luck, and who you know, given how much nepotism seems to rule in NASCAR) that keep those people from making it.