At average speeds at around 140 miles an hour surrounded by other cars doing the same! Have you ever been over 90-95 miles an hour in a car on a straight freeway? If golfers and basketball and football and baseball players can be called athletes then nascar and indy guys who risk their lives at insane speeds should definitely be called athletes. Here is a number of all the guys who died driving at certain tracks and here is the wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...racing_crashes Tell me how many guys died playing baseball, football, basketball, soccer or golf? The five tracks with the most competitor fatalities 1 Indianapolis Motor Speedway 56 2 Nürburgring 48 3 Monza 30 4 Daytona International Speedway 24 5 Le Mans 24