Is It A Sport?

Last night we had Sports Night in Awana.  As part of the program I wrote a fun song (at least I thought it was fun) based on "Old McDonald Had A Farm".  Mine was called "We All Have A Favorite Sport" and featured five sports - baseball, football, soccer, basketball, and hockey.  It included things like "with a hit hit here, and a hit hit there, here a hit, there a hit, everywhere a hit hit".   Afterwards a young lad came to me and said that I should have included NASCAR.  I smiled and thanked him.  Then today when I sent an update to our Awana staff I mentioned that I could have included NASCAR, with "a crash crash here and a crash crash there".  But, to me NASCAR still isn't a sport.  Well I now know that somebody reads what I write because it wasn't long until the NASCAR fans responded.  I was told how exciting this "sport" really is, how every track is different with its own challenge, how athletic and in shape the drivers must be, and how athletic and trained the pit crews really are.  I guess I can't argue with that, but does that really make it a sport?  My response was that it is much less expensive to watch the young drivers race up and down my street at excessive speeds or to drive on route 222 and watch folks zoom by me like they are on a racetrack.  Now that irritates me but doesn't excite me. And i can do that without all the smells and fumes that are part of racing.  Then there are my mechanics who work on my cars - most of them are excellent but they just don't work as fast - probably because they are making money on me by charging me by the hour.  And I don't find that to be a sport, just an expensive necessity.  What do you think?  You can express your opinion in the poll to the right.  It will be open for votes until November 30 at midnight.   However, in the meantime, despite my feelings that it isn't really a sport, I will probably need to concede the point since I have just checked out the expert, Webster's Dictionary.   "Sport - a source of diversion, physical activity engaged in for pleasure."  I guess that settles it.  So, the next time I physically drive my car for the pleasure of doing so (or the diversion of wasting gas), I can appropriately say that I am participating in a sport.  Now that this is settled, off to route 222!