By Paul Kelly
allstate400atthebrickyard.com
Friday, October 14, 2005
"NASCAR: Driven to Extremes" Web Site
When it came time to start reporting and filming a CNN special on safety and athletic performance in NASCAR, Dr. Sanjay Gupta knew there was one place he had to visit.
"There's just no way you could have done the special without Indy," said Gupta, senior medical correspondent for CNN's health and medical unit. "It is so emblematic because of its rich history. And with 200,000 people on both sides of that narrow straightaway, it sort of matched the feel of the show we were trying to create, that excitement we were trying to convey."
Gupta and his CNN team interviewed numerous NASCAR NEXTEL Cup superstars and crew members at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in August for his CNN Primetime Special, "NASCAR: Driven to Extremes," which airs at 10 p.m. (EDT) Sunday, Oct. 16.
Interviews and footage were recorded at other racetracks around America, but Gupta said the lead-in and other important segments of the special were filmed at IMS by design.
"We thought it would be a fitting place to anchor the special, both literally and figuratively," Gupta said.
Although he is a practicing neurosurgeon and assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory University Hospital and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, racing always has intrigued Gupta. After all, he grew up in Michigan as the son of two automotive engineers and was a fan of the United States Grand Prix Formula One race when it took place in Detroit from 1982-88.
Gupta's parents spawned his passion for stock car racing.
"I developed an interest in stock cars for the same reason a lot of people did: My parents worked on those cars, and then I saw them at the racetrack," Gupta said. "I thought that was pretty neat. For me as a neurosurgeon, I'm interested in the whole safety aspect."
Part of that safety aspect is the degree to which drivers are athletes. And Gupta admits he underestimated the athleticism of NASCAR drivers until he began reporting for this special this year and talked with drivers such as Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards and Jerry Nadeau.
"There's this perception out there that NASCAR drivers are beer-swilling, cigar-puffing, pot-bellied guys making a bunch of left turns every Sunday for a few hours," Gupta said. "I didn't really understand until I started looking into it the degree of athleticism and the toll that being a NASCAR driver takes on your body. That was what was sort of most striking to me.
"Talking to a lot of sports physiologists, you understand that race car driving, NASCAR driving, has the same demands physically on the body that a long-distance runner, a marathon runner, has, for about the same length of time. I thought that was very interesting."
While drivers face greater risks from lapses in concentration than most other athletes, Gupta said there are physical parallels between a NASCAR driver and football or basketball players. Wallace told Gupta he once lost 11 ½ pounds during a race from sweating.
There also are mental demands that NASCAR drivers share with other athletes. Both a race driver and a hockey goalie experience what Gupta called "anticipatory reflex," a sensation in which their heart rates rise dramatically simply anticipating the upcoming stress and challenge of competition, even during points of apparent inactivity.
"If you study these guys, you find that their heart rates are way up high even though they're just seemingly standing there at one end of the ice," Gupta said of hockey goalies. "It's all anticipation. They found the same sort of anticipatory reflex in NASCAR drivers, just sitting on pit road, waiting to go. Even before they've done anything, really, their heart rates are way up and they stay up the entire time, which is similar to hockey."
And there's no track on the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup schedule where that anticipatory reflex is greater than Indianapolis, Gupta said.
"It's just such a big sporting event that when you talk about the anticipatory reflex just from the adrenaline, the excitement, that's probably nowhere more heightened than it is at the Brickyard just because of the legacy, of the history, of that place," Gupta said. "The physiology and the psychology sort of play a role together there at the Brickyard probably unlike anywhere else."
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2006 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard tickets: The Indianapolis Motor Speedway ticket office is accepting ticket renewals and new ticket orders for the 2006 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 6. Tickets can be purchased online at www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com or by calling the IMS ticket office at (317) 492-6700 or (800) 822-INDY outside the Indianapolis area.
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