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Comment by sharkweek | Hacker News Reader

Friends and I always enjoy debating this --

At what point does a scientific improvement become too great of an advantage for competing athletes

when its no longer entertaining

I would argue that it was more entertaining before it was made safe through technological advancements. It would be interesting to see a series that used self driving cars that could take more risks.

I would like to see full size remote controlled cars, that way you could cheer for wrecks without injuries. Maybe include some Spyhunter style weapons (oil slicks) like a hybrid Nascar / Battlebots event.

Battlebots, scaled up and at high speed? Where do I sign up?!

If it's entertaining because of the risks to the participants, that's not sport, it's blood sport.

No its human nature. Risk makes things more exciting to watch.

Or Le Mans.

> It would be interesting to see a series that used self driving cars

how exactly would that be interesting?

Perhaps it is because I'm from the generation that thinks watching tool assisted speed runs of video games is a good leisure activity, but I would actually watch F1 if the humans were removed and it was a battle of wits between engineers and automated systems. It sounds awesome.

In the same way as other robot competitions.

Self driving cars doesn't sound like a sport, tho.

an entirely remote controlled (as opposed to autonomous) car race could be fun to watch - can go much faster, risks of huge crashes are acceptable (or desirable...)

I actually think that would be extremely difficult. I think that such cars -- even with less restrictions -- would actually be slower than F1 cars around the same track.

My theory is that so much of driving (especially at the F1 level) is about feeling what's going on. That just doesn't translate to a remote control.

E.g. the Robert Downey Jr movie where he controls a fighting robot. Bigger and nastier risks allowed than human boxing.

I still haven't seen that, though...

That's Hugh Jackman, the movie's called "Real Steel". Not to confuse with the Robert Downey Jr. movie series where he controls a fighting robot that he occasionally is inside of.

This is what I get for commenting about movies I haven't seen yet.

I would really be interested to see a self driving car at Le Mans as a Garage 53 Project.

Have you seen the robot soccer competitions?

An optimal strategy may be to wreck the other cars. This would be a great (if not an expensive sport).

For those that enjoy bicycle racing, check out motorcycle racing. For those that like gocart racing, check out NASCAR (seriously, check it out if you haven't).

The number of fans that want to see the top technology vastly outnumber the number of fans that want to see the more limited tech.

At this point, most of the limitations are for safety. It seems like a good idea to allow innovation if it is available to all athletes. I don't for example want one F-1 team to have a patent on traction control and restrict all others from using it.

NASCAR and F1 take opposite approaches to regulating technology. F1 defines an envelope and you can do anything within that envelope. NASCAR defines specs and anything on either side of that spec is treated as a violation.

I much prefer F1's approach because it challenges engineers to innovate within parameters, just like the real world. NASCAR is trying to make everything even on the technology side and the result is that innovation is often called "cheating."

NASCAR is trying to eliminate technical advantage so that the competition is entirely about which driver and crew is best. I don't see anything wrong with that.

And if that were really the case then you wouldn't see the big teams like Hendrick and Penske dominating. Heck, even Chip Ganassi has problems competing in NASCAR and he's hardly a small player.

Not that I'm necessarily anti the NASCAR approach (though I do think the organisation itself can be somewhat capricious), but it's certainly not a form of motor sport without team-based technical advantage.

Its pretty obvious that the best drivers would go to the biggest teams with the most money to pay.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's just a different philosophy. Personally I like the ability for engineers to innovate in F1 more, but of course that varies from person to person.

There is nothing wrong with it. I just prefer the technological competition that is so much a part of F1.

NASCAR is a terrible example in this case. I'm not what you would call a huge fan of the sport, but I did work for the organization for a while and the racing itself is very much not "top technology". In fact, many would say the appeal is in the restrictions placed on the technology allowed for the teams.

The number of fans that want to see the top technology vastly outnumber the number of fans that want to see the more limited tech.

All things being equal, fans would like to see more advanced technology on the ractrack. But the reality is that the more degrees of technical freedom in the rules, the more expensive it will be to compete, and the less close the racing will be.

NASCAR for instance is very restricted technically but is very, very successful because the racing is close. Formula 1 and Moto GP are two series with pretty open rules and they're always trying to rein them in to control costs and increase parity.

The number 1 thing fans want to see is a show. If you made Formula 1 totally unlimited you'd have gaps so big that there'd never be a question of who would win barring a crash. And it would be so expensive you'd end up with a single-digit grid of cars before long.

> If you made Formula 1 totally unlimited you'd have gaps so big that there'd never be a question of who would win barring a crash.

Which is largely true today during the Vettel era and was largely true during the Schumacher era. People still watch it.

The gaps I'm talking about would mean the winner lapped up to the top 5 or top 3. A truly unlimited ruleset would be financially ruinous as well. Only a few years ago top teams were spending $500 million or more a season and that was with a ruleset that had quite a few restrictions.

Check out America's Cup. The boat designs are now far different than what they were decades ago - and I don't think they have design restrictions.

The America's Cup has very strict design restrictions. For example, in the latest edition, they weren't expecting catamarans to be able to foil because they had disallowed moving parts on the control surfaces. The Kiwis realised that you could actually move the entire control surface to get the desired control. It was awkward, which is why they had so much trouble actually controlling the foiling.

Anyway, yes, there are a lot of design restrictions in America's Cup yacht design.

That surprises me - I would have thought they would have disallowed the catamaran entirely. It's a radically different design. Are the restrictions for safety, or to cap some kind of performance?

The winner of the Americas Cup determines the rules for the next one. In this year's Ellison wanted catamarans. Here is some more info on the some of the rules http://www.cupinfo.com/en/ac34-americas-cup-2013-ac72-class-...

I think that stopped being true of F1 20+ years ago when people could actually overtake and stuff.

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