[Zeke]

Well, food notwithstanding, there is a correlation between sword juggling and race car driving. The movements are learned through much practice and become automatic. No one can drive a stock car as well as they guys that have been in them since they were old enough to climb in. Most of the time before that, they were in karts or Legends cars.

Today's crop of drivers are not more talented than the greats of yesteryear. They are, however, more prepared. When you do almost a 1000 laps over the course of a weekend running multiple series plus practice, you have a lot of time for getting those "four" turns down pat.

Frankly, even if I was born with the talent, I could never have been that dedicated. As a anonymous racer recently put it, "The fun factor was gone for me 2 hours ago."

When I was racing enduro karts in hour long races at big track, they would show the cross flags at 30 min. I'd look at those and go, "You're kidding. I've been out here for week already." The 15 min to go sign was a big motivator. Then I switched to sit-up enduros of 30 min races. Now those were fun.

If you can believe this, the early karting enduro races of the 60's and ran 2 hours. That is to say, no fueling and no driver change, just 2 hours of running a 3' x 4' wheelbase on 10" tires, 1 inch off the ground with no suspension.

Even at that, I don't envy driving in a 130* cockpit for 3 hours.