13 Ways Of Looking At Sports

In May, my best friends and I took on a challenge to create a twenty minute documentary about car culture (more specifically, car culture in Minnesota), however, after taking “13 Ways of Looking at Sports”, I formed connections and realizations that car culture is a branch of motorsport and the passion/community evolving around motorsport parallels the roots of sport we have discussed in class. Our essential questions we wanted to answer through the documentary were: How can we bring awareness to the “average joe” that cars and car culture are an expression of creativity, sport, and lifestyle? How can we deepen our awareness about the Minnesota car culture and how can we share the story behind Minnesota car culture? Essentially, we wanted to
illuminate the diversity of car culture, and showcase the unified community regardless of your demographics. The documentary was created in two weeks and we wanted to keep the expenses as low as possible, so besides the drone footage we only used an iPhone and GoPro to film the documentary.
The motivation behind creating the documentary grew from a desire to deepen my understanding of motorsport and car culture through a diverse range of conversations within Minnesota.
My passion for car culture and motorsport developed from the environment I grew up in and the personal connections and enjoyment I have gained through the community. I consider motorsport to be one of the most passion driven sports in existence because the adrenaline rush and constant enjoyment from the culture outweighs any other experience I have had with sport besides playing lacrosse. My love for motorsport and car culture bloomed from growing up in Indianapolis, which is considered to be the racing capital of the world. I recall going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway every year and every weekend in the Spring to watch my favorite racers qualify for the Indy 500, Brickyard 400, and the Motor GP. Growing up in a car enthusiast environment has allowed me to grow a deep passion for the sport and the community/culture. When I moved to Minnesota, I experienced a reciprocated feeling to the Indianapolis motorsport scene. The only difference was that Indianapolis had been recognized globally as a pronounced motorsport scene, whereas in Minnesota, the average joe is unconscious to motorsport and the culture
surrounding.
I wanted to share how the passion was integrated into the daily lives of individuals who are engrained within the culture. I believe that non-enthusiasts need to recognize and realize what car culture and motorsport are rather than make assumptions about someone with a roaring exhaust. In addition, every sport has a few bad apples that form a groupthink potentially creating negative perceptions of the sport. However, many individuals in the sporting world do not consider car culture and motorsport a legitimate sport due to the negative perceptions of the bad apples, which parallels the same experience I have had playing lacrosse and the stigma surrounding “lax bro culture”. In conclusion, my two week experience creating the documentary and revisiting the root of sports within motorsport/car culture has increased my motivation towards to justify the positives of motorsport.