Fast cars, like roller coasters and dive bars, are all about risk. We like to feel like we're toying with something dangerous.
Is it wise to build up your ‘92 Mustang to 500 horsepower and go sliding around that country road out past your house? No. Do we, as a society and as a species, do it anyway? Of course.
One course in particular came up a lot today. Bill Caswell explained to us that the problem with Pikes Peak isn't the new pavement, but a lack of practice up the mountain. Still, the some questioned why anyone would sit in a race car at the bottom of the course and head up the mountain with so much danger up ahead.
Gamecat235 made it a question of risk.
The hill climb is among the longest running races in the USA (second oldest according to the article and numerous other sources). And yet there have been only two driving fatalities in the history of the event. That should tell you all you need to know.
Why would you drive across a bridge on a windy day? Why would you hike along a mountain ridge? Why would you buy a 500HP Mustang? There are risks in everything. Just because the race takes place on a mountain doesn't mean that the racers don't do everything they can to mitigate the risks. And so far, they seem to have been pretty successful. This year there were a pair of Motorcycle riders in the 1205 class that broke the previously unbreakable 10 minute barrier. On motorcycles. These men (and women, and sometimes, technically, children) are taking a challenge and doing everything they can to prove that they can achieve a goal against this very daunting course. Darwinism has nothing to do here, unless the people involved didn't take the necessary time and resources to make this as safe a process as will be allowed.