Athletic performance vs age

Hey y'all,

Curious to know what literature is out there on performance decline with age in motorsport.

I found a study which looked at the peak performance age of medal winning Olympic athletes, over several decades, for each respective sport. The more explosive the movement (e.g. sprinting), the younger the peak (21/22). Marathon running had the highest peak, around 32/33.

Have there been any attempts to study this in motorsport, with emphasis on hand-eye coordination, reflexes, stamina, balance and spatial awareness?

Thanks!

 

two words....Scott Pruett

In certain forms of racing craftiness and experience count

 

Probably depends on the physicality of the racing series and level of endurance required for extended periods of time.

 

Agreed, didn't mean to insinuate otherwise, but some more than others. Assuming you're in "driving" shape, age and experience will help, but being in driving shape becomes more and more difficult as you get older (especially if it's not a full time paying career)

 

After considerable time spent with my old racing buddies I can confirm the old saying is absolutely true:

"The older you get, the quicker you used to be."

 

Although not scientific at all, on the show Brain Games they had an episode where they took very young inexperienced drivers (teens/low 20's) vs older drivers (50's) and ran them through an obstacle course to see which would do better experience or quicker reflexes. The youth did better.

They also did an experiment with a car racing video game and while you were driving the course the game would flash a foreign object onto the track very quickly and the older group wouldnt see it, but the younger group did. The younger peoples brains were able to scan larger areas and detect multiple fast events better than the older people.

Back to the OP question, I would think the best study would be to examine actual results from history (plotting race car drivers age with their success). It would be an interesting study to see. Unfortunately for me, I'm certain that speed, reaction time, being able to process multiple events declines once you go over 40 years old!

 

There have been a lot of studies about athletic performance and age. It's hard to know exactly what's what and while there are limiting factors, there are other mitigating factors.

For example, as you get older your heartbeat drops one beat a year on average which inherently limits how intense you can exercise (interpret that in a variety of ways). So now matter how hard you try, you can't beat father time.

However, the University of Utah did this amazing study of marathon runners and here is what they found. If you start running at 19, you peak around age 27 and then you decline. So eight years up. How long do you think it takes to get back to the running times a person did when they were 19? 10 years? 20 years?

Try 45 years. It took people until they were 64 years old to get back their times they did when they were 19.

If I didn't have so many injuries (traumatic injuries, not overuse injuries), I could have continued racing as a professional cyclist until I was 45 or so and maintained the same level of success. I'm sure of it. I noticed a slight decline in heart rate and peak power but much higher levels of sustainable power and my pain tolerance just kept getting better and better, as was my aerobic fitness.

 

I remember Mark Martin (who raced NASCAR Cup into his early 50s) saying something along the lines that he knew his reflexes and eye hand coordination weren't as good as they were in his 20s/30s but the collective experience and wisdom of racing 30+ years meant he made faster and better decisions, so the net was the same performance.

btw Mark Martin was (and still is) incredibly fit. I think Sherpa is correct, working out consistently over time is a huge advantage, even if you're not at the "elite athlete" level. self care is cumulative.

 

If you look at something like SCCA there are lots of really fast older people. They have cumulative years of experience, their times may slowly decline, while the young guns can and will get faster it will take them much time to get to the old guys experienced laptimes.

Cars are interesting because unlike running the equipment is a significant piece of the equation. Not in the sense that one has a faster car than another, but that if there were two people in spec miata age and physical peak(youth) would be less of a differentiating factor than experience.

Now in a F1 car the forces are so high, you are going to need that peak physicality of youth too.

There isa reason why the USAF still has some combat pilots who are in their 50s, if you can stay fit experience counts for a lot, especialy when a machine is involved.

On another note, I find that driving on the track keeps me and my senses far sharper than my peers who play say golf.

My waterski coach said years ago, that as you age you can become better at a sport because you can think it through and have better technique, at age 51 I am better in slalom course than at 35, but I have less muscle endurance and have to work harder at being there. Obviously age means your potential physical peak is lower vs youth, but then other than real professionals most youth dont operate at 100% of peak performance.

If you are not pro racing, age should not be a limiting factor provided you are otherwise in good shape.

 

Three old adages are appropriate here...

If you say you can do at 45 what you could do at 19, you sure couldn't do much at 19....

Motor racing is much like sex and bicycles.... It's not that you forget how to do it, but if you don't do it very often you aren't going to be very good at it....

Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.... every time....

 

Youth: I can't possibly make a bad mistake and get hurt. Wisdom: I certainly can make a mistake or someone else will and take me out. Stuff hurts and I don't want to risk going that fast anymore and don't need anymore injuries.

 

MotoGP riders are usually done by 31-32. Rossi is the huge exception. An interesting aside, a friend and client Freddie Ekblom teamed with Michael Andretti and Mario for the 245 hours of Le Mans. This was in the late 90s. They didn't run. Mario couldn't get within 6 seconds of either Freddie or Michael they weren't competitive.

I quit at 43 and should have left earlier (I'd gotten lucky and won a couple of championships at 40 and 41 which disguised my getting old).

Art

 

I find that hard to believe since Mario won his class at LM24 in 1995 (2nd OA) and finished 13th and 15th OA in 1996 and 2000.

 

I think more tot he point, Mario could probably outperform most semi pro drivers today, therefore unless you are F1 Nascar etc, age shoudl not be ahuge barrier in amateur classes. Or lets put it this you can potentialy perform on a relatively higher level in car at age 60 than you can in say tennis.

 

^^This^^

 

This has been my experience with clients winning historic and club races in their mid to upper seventies, racing against current Continental Tire series drivers a third their age.

 

Yep last summer one of the the fastest cars for the weekend at the Glenn was a 70+ year old in a worked E36. No one drivign anything similar was even nearly at his pace.

 

Racing times slow as you age not just due to physiologic change. Rather, with age, also comes the recognition that accidents hurt. Bones heal slower. And mortality is a fact.

With youth, you actually believe you are immortal... With age, you are reminded daily that you aren't...

When I was young I would ski stupidly sloped hills... Because if I fell - so what. Now, if I fall... I'm going to feel it for the next week...

 

True, and some greats have said if you are not scared when you get in the car then you are stupid. But once out on track I dont think about it, just concentrate on the task at hand and let things flow.

 

I was interested in this when I was vintage racing at age 77. I had been in road racing since the early 60's then went vintage at age 55. Although I was still competitive and won occasionally I could see my performance falling off year by year particularly in the braking areas.

I quit at age 78 and sold the Brabham BT 29 formula B car.

I did some research and found that, interestingly, the peak age of chess players, which has no physical demands, is around 35 years of age.

This made me feel better.
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If I am on track at age 77 in any reasonable capacity that will be great. You give me inspiration and hope.

 

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