You forgot the size of the smoke show. That counts too. You see, all those things you listed are scored based on the judges OPINION. Like a movie review. Siskel and Ebert never tried to call film making a sport.

Now you’re getting it.

Real competition, like racing, LSR, observed trials, rallying, may be a show, but only incidentally. The goal is to go fastest, finish first, clear the most sections, clean the most checks, not to put on the best spectacle. Often, putting on the best spectacle means you lost. The goal of drifting is not to be fastest,…

If figure skating were a competitive sport then, yes. It is my contention that true competitive sport is not subjectively judged. It’s not a race, it’s a show.

I think the confusion is yours, my friend. How is a rally scored? A classic TSD rally is scored by who has been the most accurate and zeroed the most checkpoints. A modern rally is scored by who is fastest though the sections. Either way there is an objective measure for deciding winners and losers. Drift is scored…

It’s like motorcycle stunting. Very hard, somewhat risky, and gas powered, but not a sport. It’s a show. It’s hard, and so is a 180 stoppie into a standing jesus. That doesn’t make it a sport. It’s a show. At least the motorcycle stunt guys are honest enough to call what they do a show.

I didn’t say drifting was easy.
It’s just not a sport. It’s a performance.

And all of those things have objective scoring. There is a clear winner - who finished first, or went fastest, or cleared more sections, or zeroed more checkpoints. Real, actual, competition. Drifting is like figure skating. The scoring is subjective. That’s why figure skating is bullshit and speed skating isn’t.

One is for an actual motorsport with objective scoring and the other is for gas powered figure skating.

The funny thing is, a long low bike like a cruiser has a lot of advantages under braking. Cruisers typically do very well in stopping distance tests. They’re boring and they suck, but I don’t think you can blame the crappy bike for this one.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I loved those. A pack of Space Food Sticks and the tree-house was an Apollo capsule.

That was a stunning display of incompetence.

Practice, practice practice. Seriously, 15 minutes in a parking lot every once in a while will get you threshold braking on demand - like a boss.

The road lobby is very powerful, and the rail lobby isn’t. Road travel has a potent appeal to “American Individualism.” There was a proven conspiracy among GM and Firestone to convert rail to road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_M… The interstate system played a large part. Here is an excellent book on the…

Yep, that’s how it’s done. We had one in the basement engineering lab at school to do just that. It had to be an antique when I used it in the 80's. It looked a lot like this, and worked by raising and lowering the entire cylinder barrel and head over the bottom end assembly.

Not too likely - they’ll be gone next year.

You haven’t really lived until you know the sickly sweet and vaguely toxic flavor of blue loctite.

Most of the sliding is done to scrub off speed on corner entry. The riders get it all back in line as soon as they can for the best drive down the straight. Sliding is even slower on asphalt. Also, bikes are required to have rear brakes. From the AMA 2016 rules:

After all, what’s the appeal of a race series with no drivers to route for, and cars that are programed to all perform at the same optimum level?

One trick is to make sure that traffic is too heavy for the cops, too. Four years of commuting a SE to NW diagonal across NYC including such tourist wonders as the Lincoln Tunnel, West Side Drive, Cross Bronx and even the Bronx River Pkwy, twice a day, I saved 1/2 the time a car would and got one warning on a surface…