Gentlemen, start your engines: Why racing creates mechanical art forms - CNN
The drive to win, to be the fastest, to be the best, to simply go faster, accounts for innumerable advances in the development and evolution of the automobile, benefiting all of today's classes of transportation. There are very few things in any contemporary automobile that have not been either directly developed or improved by racing. From basic engine design (the overhead camshaft), transmissions, gearboxes and tire technology, to independent suspension, superchargers and turbochargers, fuel injection and push-button ignition, not to mention a host of safety features like disc... Each time we step into even the most mundane of vehicles, we are profiting in some way from the sport of racing and the craving for speed. In race car drivers we see pioneers, people who are willing to risk their lives in the pursuit of not just winning but also breaking records and pushing frontiers. Even more important are race car designers, the innovators whose labors have such far reaching. Source: www.cnn.com
