Boring sports are praised for their "tradition" and "heritage." It's time to bring these sad excuses for competition into the modern age. Here are ten sports, chosen by Jalopnik readers, that would be better with a bit more horsepower.
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Photo Credit: Top Gear
10.) Swimming
Suggested By: schrotacular
Why it's better: One of Iceland's great cultural treasures is their collection of nitro-injected Formula Offroad Jeeps, which have such knobby tires and such powerful engines that they can drive on water like a 4X4 paddleboat. Keep the speed up and you don't drown.
Sounds better than the men's freestyle, no?
Photo Credit: Tom Olliver
9.) Downhill skiing
Suggested By: chilidog
Why it's better: This one would basically be a bunch of cars tearing down the side of a remarkably steep mountain. it would be like racing the powerful, mid-engined, four-wheel-drive racers from French ice racing, only much, much faster and there'd be jumps.
Photo Credit: Kyle Gradinger
8.) Ultimate fighting
Suggested By: JackTrade
Why it's better: It'd be impossible for people to fight while sitting safely inside their cars, but reader JackTrade has a solution.
Given the Roman-Empire feel our country continues to take on coupled with our love of video games and increasingly worse road rage, it's only a matter of time before UFC fights start with each contestant in cars, in a big arena, driving around, taunting and smashing into each other. Once the cars are immobilized, out they jump and fight hand to hand.
You know this is coming.
Photo Credit: adrianpua
7.) Soccer
Suggested By: BtheD19 bought a V6 Mustang with a V8 swap
Why it's better: In spite of so many thrilling zero — zero ties, soccer (known as Guten Tag hier ist Fuβball! to our German readers) could use an added dose of excitement. Make the ball and the goals a bit bigger and you can stuff a bunch of rally drivers in little hatchbacks onto the pitch. There wouldn't be quite as much fancy footwork, but the fouls would be amazing.
6.) Show Jumping
Suggested By: SennaMP4
Why it's better: Cars have replaced horses on the roads; it's time to replace them on the show circuit as well. Get a bunch of high-powered offroaders like baja truggies, put ramps in front of the jumps, and you'll have turned car stunts for Dukes of Hazzard wannabes into something for the sophisticates.
Photo Credit: Andrew Pescod
5.) Figure skating
Suggested By: Viperfan1
Why it's better: You'll excuse that the clip above, showing a French ice race, looks very much like automotive speed skating, but you just need to look at the technique. The cars slide in controlled drifts, pirouetting in tandem. They've got more grace than half of the Kim Yu-Na wannabes out there.
4.) Long jump
Suggested By: TreeGuy
Why it's better: The jumps are much, much bigger and the car will crash and roll a dozen times if the driver doesn't nail the landing. You'll need a lot of space if you go with anything as powerful as Robby Gordon's Dakar Rally Hummer.
3.) Jousting
Suggested By: Kiwi_Commander
Why it's better: The speeds will be higher with cars than with horses, but with advances in carbon fiber and titanium construction, I'm sure someone could design a sufficiently strong set of armor for the jousters to survive the blows.
2.) Ice Hockey
Suggested By: Guacamole Burned Edition.
Why it's better: The rules for ice hockey with cars are certainly up for debate, but it seems the best solution would be to use a tiny single-seater with studded tires and just weld a hockey stick to the side of the car. Ice racers with a stick-wielding co-driver would also be appropriate.
You might want to hold the matches on a fairly sizeable frozen lake, but close quarters on a rink might be better. Any way you put it, the checks would be epic.
Photo Credit: Chiva Congelado
1.) Biathlon
Suggested By: Demon-Xanath
Why it's better: You replace the skis with rally cars, having wheel-to-wheel racing through forest stages to the shooting sites. The biathletes would reverse up to the range, flip the tailgate, and fire out the back of the car, lying down. As you may know, Top Gear already tried this one, and it was awesome. Guns + crosscountry rallycross = win.
Photo Credit: DVIDSHUB