This morning’s Morning Dump revealed some information that some of us still aren’t quite sure how to handle. Planning for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics is underway and apparently, among the sports being considered is motorsport. But what the heck does that even mean? What does Olympic motorsport even look like?
I think StillNotATony is onto something here:
Olympic motorsport ideas:
1. The car must be manufactured entirely within the participating country. All components. It can all be custom built, but only one configuration, and it has to be used in this configuration for the entire event.
2. The event is a decathlon. Drag racing. Hill climb. Rallycross. Tractor pull. Fuel economy. Top speed over a measured mile. Mud bog. Road course. Burnouts for distance. Final event: demolition derby. All with the same car. All events are scored equally except fuel economy, which gets triple points, just to mess with the teams that go all out on power.
3. ???
Edit to add: the entire team must ride in the vehicle from event to event. It can be a single seater, but then the driver is the only person who can touch the car for the entire event. Fuel, change tires, everything. So you can have a whole pit crew, but the vehicle has to have seats for all of them.
This is easily the best racing series I’ve ever heard. Admittedly, I almost never watch racing. I cannot tell you who is the best at NASCAR right now and I couldn’t name even five F1 drivers. But I tell you what, this racing series sounds so fun that I would be glued to the edge of my seat. No, scratch that, I will become a racing driver just to take part in this!
Yet, this wasn’t the only great suggestion. We loved the one from ColoradoFX4:
Ensure a U.S. gold medal and go with a demolition derby. For extra American-ness, require all entrants be USDM models from 1973-1984.
This turned into increasingly silly suggestions, which we definitely co-sign:
Paul Beaudet
Regular open field or figure 8?
StillNotATony
Figure 8 WITH boats and trailers in tow!
Maybe we should do this ourselves? I wonder what the insurance on a racing series like this would look like. Have a great evening everyone!
(Top Image: Wisconsin Department of Tourism)
I’m just going to say, there’s no way an A.I. could come up with something this absurdly awesome.
The $5k Hooptie Challenge on MotorTrend was actually not too far off from this. They were all two-person teams in a sub-$5k car, and every episode was a different challenge (drag race, rallycross, dirt oval, time attack, etc). The teams were allowed to change their setup between events but only had a day to do it in a big shared garage. It was really, really cool and I’d love to see more like it.
“The car must be manufactured entirely within the participating country.”
What does this mean? Are we tracking all the way back to the raw materials? If that’s the case, I think we’re all fucked from the start.
Yeah I don’t think that’s even possible. Everything is so globalized these days.
This is beyond awesome
I’m just happy to be nominated amongst brilliant lunatics like StillNotATony.
This would mean the return of the riding mechanic from the early 20th century. The proposal seems like a mashup of Formula SAE, Scrapheap Challenge and a Missouri dirt track’s event schedule . The most interesting part would be the bush mechanic fixes to keep cars running between stages.
I would expect someone to end up with a motorcycle like the one built out of a wrecked 2CV
I see this ending up with 90% of the entrants being mid-engine.
Longest demolition derby ever!
And any country that already has a domestic 3 speed transfer case manufacturer is sitting pretty on max versatility.
Thanks, Mercedes!
Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about some sort of utter madness racing series waaaay too much…
Where can I get tickets?
“ Ensure a U.S. gold medal and go with a demolition derby.”
“ The car must be manufactured entirely within the participating country.”
Chrysler Imperial for the win!