The Gladiators Of Motorsport

I read a comment made on a youtube video. Underneath footage of the crash which killed Indycar driver, Dan Wheldon, there was speculation about when he died. A user wrote: he died at the circuit but they don't like to pronounce it there and then, they take him to a hospital first, so that the spectators don't compare it to gladiators at the Colosseum.

Days later and there was another fatality. Marco Simoncelli lost control of his MotoGP bike, slid across the track and was hit by Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards, the impact knocking his helmet off.

Motorsport continually looks at ways to make racing conditions safer. And there has been a lot of progress. Take Formula One. In the 1960's fourteen drivers were killed. Yet no driver has lost his life since the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994.

But ask a racing fan, at a circuit, if he likes seeing crashes and he'll say 'yes', with an impish grin. Is this much different from the bloodlust of those gladiator fans?

I think so.

Whether we like it or not, there is a part of our psychology that wants to watch people flirting with danger, even if it's through splayed fingers. There is a 'can't watch, must watch' mentality that toys with us. It plays out our own relationship with mortality - the excitement, the adrenalin of living life on the edge in a tug-of-war with primal self-preservation. We need to live but are afraid to die.

But at least we have moved on since death was an integral part of gladiatorial games.

Crowds will still go to motorsport events and enjoy watching a crash. We can't help it. It's part of our make-up. It's natural. So long as our underlying humanity feels the pain, the guilt and the shame of those impulses should that crash be serious.

It's when that's absent that we need to worry.