Should 13 year olds be allow to race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

[Quantum Windbag]

Dispite what the family might be saying right now, I'm guessing they would give up an early promising motorcycle career for their son's life back.

Please explain how a motorcycle accident involving a 13 year old driver at 120 mph is a "freak accident".

It was a freak accident because this particular form of sport is statistically safer than swimming and snowboarding. It was freak in the sense that it was unlikely to happen, not in the sense that it was not foreseeable.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I see youngsters in my sport all the time doing things in trucks I would only have dreamed about at 13 & 14 yrs old.... its impressive the skills they have at that age.
I'd turn my rig over to an experienced 13 yr old any day.

I know what you mean. I used to be impressed that I could do a wheelie on a bike, now these kids are doing flips.

 

[Middleman]

Does media attention to things like child snatchings and accidents of this sort, then, contribute to our cultural trend of wanting to bubble wrap our young, trading in freedom to explore life for freedom from physical risk?

 

[Big Black Dog]

I think it would have to depend on the kid. NHRA allows kids even younger than 13 to drive those Junior dragsters and some of them can go pretty fast. While it's true the Junior dragsters are intended to go in a straight line down the drag strip, the action is pretty much the same. Younger kids go to those local moto cross tracks and drive all over them, jumping, sliding around, and doing other wild stuff on those motorcycles, so what's the difference? I think it all depends on the kid.