"The Noise Matters" by Ashton Hughes
A low rumble like rolling thunder echoes across the landscape of turf and tarmac. The earth begins to quake, bracing itself, straining to hold the force about to be unleashed upon its surface. The heart flutters. Breath shallows. A flash of green. Accelerators drop in unison, sending signals to pistons and a shot of adrenaline through the veins. Fingers tremble. The rolling thunder becomes the wakening roar of forty uncaged beasts, the deafening approach of an impending tornado, the enraged scream of space rockets on four wheels, and then – a blur, every color of the rainbow, consumes everything. A sensation like floating, as if the storm has blown you into the sky, the wind taken out of your chest. The stampede tears into the first turn, the pitch still rising as they chase the leader. Flying down the straightaway, casting shadows along the wall. Barreling into the third corner, a smooth arc like a dogfighter lining up his nose for a shot. The silhouettes regain their hues as they propel off the banking. They streak across the worn painted line. The first lap concludes. The mad dash continues. And while you ease yourself back into the seat, catching your breath, the ferocious, unabated wails of the engines will not cease until the checkered flag falls.
The noise matters.
It has long been acknowledged that many people don’t get the appeal of auto racing until they attend a race in person. Whether it’s the old quips about “turning left” and “driving in circles” often pointed towards oval racing or the remarks about open wheel series being nothing more than “high-speed parades” with little real action, motorsport is often
considered mildly amusing or even puzzling to those unfamiliar with it.
And who can blame them? Too many times, television broadcasts are so zoomed in on a car that the sense of speed is diminished. When seen in person, the pace seems impossible to believe. On television, they usually only show or discuss one or two cars at once. Those watching at the track can see battles taking place all around the circuit. On television, the roar of the engines is domesticated, muffled, and neatly mixed with the voices of commentators. In person, the noise is wild, and this noise is vital to racing. It is not merely an attribute of racing – it may even be considered synonymous with it.
The noise is the sound of speed. Powerful, furious, and untamed. If the heart of racing is to see who is the fastest, the heartbeat is the growl of a V-8. Or the overwhelming wail of a V-10, depending on who you ask.
Yet, in recent years, there has been a sort of outcry from fans across various disciplines of auto racing. For all the importance that the sounds of racing have, it has been evolving. In the opinion of many, it has not been a positive development. A longing for the past is nothing new in sports, but an interesting observation is the similarities the criticisms share.
It doesn’t take long to find followers of Formula One in social media comment sections and forums begging for the return of the iconic V-10 engines whose siren-like scream defined the late 1990s and early 2000s. While it is all but impossible that these engines will ever come back, the persistent craving will likely never be satisfied. Part of it is simply nostalgia for the epic era of competition and culture that it was, but it shouldn’t be overlooked that a large part of it involves the hard truth that auto racing will never provide exactly the same visceral, overstimulating experience it once did for many fans.
IndyCar fans have voiced similar sentiments. The CART era, like F1’s V-10 era, will likely never be replicated. Regardless, many fans daydream about the turbocharged V-8 they heard reverberating off the walls of Michigan Speedway some 25 years ago.
NASCAR, for as profound of an impact its engines still have on race day visitors, has faced backlash in this area as well. Calls for more horsepower have been the trend for the past decade-plus, and while the package has modified frequently to allow for closer racing, many fans are still discontented. Besides the sound of big horsepower, fans miss
the unmistakable gravelly whine of the X-pipe exhaust that dominated the early to mid-2000s.
The sound of racing has certainly retained its potent effect on track visitors. But the changes in regulations across Formula One, IndyCar, and NASCAR over the past 15-20 years, while lowering costs and becoming more environmentally-friendly, have had the unfortunate consequence of watering down the in-person experience. The world still shakes when cars take to the track – but not as it once did.
Unlike attending football and basketball games, where sensory perceptions are largely limited to sight and sound, auto racing offers the chance to feel the action. The visuals are stunning – cars riding the knife’s edge, inches apart from each other – but without the unrivaled, raw sound of speed, how many people would come to the track? The racing product, then, should not only be evaluated by passing opportunities, lap times, and close quarters, but the thrill a spectator can get by merely hearing a racer blast past their seat in the grandstands.
While there has been growth in some areas, it is widely known that auto racing has struggled to attract the crowds it pulled in during the turn of the century. There are many reasons why this is the case. But how much of the decline in popularity and viewership of American motorsport might be attributed to something as simple as the sound of the engines?
Maybe it isn’t so simple. But one thing is for sure: the noise matters. And just like listening to an old song can take a person back to the past, the symphony of racing can make a person fall in love with it all over again. It may be in a different key than when drivers like Schumacher, de Ferran, and Earnhardt took part, but the symphony must play on – and it will.