Automobile Racing is a Sport By Brenda Williams At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Auto-racing has grown into one of the world’s most popular sports. Men have been competing ever since the dawn of mankind, the most magnificent manifestation of this desire to compete occurred in the Olympics. Ever since vehicles were built, they have been used for racing. Historically, people raced on horse-drawn buggies. After cars were built, they became the popular vehicles used for racing. On April 28 1887 the first ever race was organized in Paris but there was only one competitor, the first ever contest occurred on July 22 1894, organized by the Paris magazine Le Petit Journal. The next year a race from Paris to Bordeaux was organized. The Gordon Bennett Cup started the tradition of international racing competitions.

City to city racing gained popularity and many races were organized from Paris to other major cities connected to Paris in Europe. However, in 1903 Marcel Renault suffered from a fatal accident in the Paris-Madrid race, the accident caused nine fatalities forcing the French Government to abandon the race and ban open-road racing altogether. However, the interest in the sport did not end there. In fact, car manufacturers started producing pure racing cars.

Currently there are many major categories of auto-racing. Arguably the most popular in the world is the Formula One racing, which belongs to the category of single-seater racing. The cars are specifically designed to achieve high-speeds. The races follow a certain format with Formula One being the standard international format. There is an annual World Championship for which drivers compete by taking part in races on racing tracks all over the world. The likes of Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, BMW Sauber, Toyota, Honda, Renault and Red Bull Racing compete for the championship. The companies are constantly looking to improve their driver skills and technology to achieve the best results. Michael Schumacher, who drove for Ferrari, is a recent legend of the sport.

Touring car racing and Production car racing use production driven race cars, the former features large grids whereas the latter is a restricted form to reduce costs. Another variation of this category is called one-make racing or single marque, where only the cars produced by a single manufacturer or sometimes just a single model from a manufacturer are used.

Stock car racing is the most popular form of car racing in the United States, the largest body governing this category is called NASCAR. Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 are two of its most famous races. The cars are custom made according to specifications specifically for the purpose of racing. Cars race on oval tracks. Automobile Racing Club of America and United Speed Alliance Racing are two of the other stock car governing bodies.

Rallying, also called rally racing, has two broad categories. The first category of cars use cars which are legal to use on the road called the modified Group A whereas the Group N Production cars race on public roads closed for the public or off road areas. The format of the race is such that drivers earn points after completing intervals and there are several stages over which the rally is conducted. The World Rally Championship (WRD) is the top series in the world. Targa racing, drag racing and off-road racing are other forms of auto-racing popular in the world.

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