Close to Home by John McPherson for May 30, 2018

Next, they’ll be using robots for the pit stops, and timing them exactly so there can be no unfair advantage between teams.

“CEBSOIL”?? :-) I also like “4-D Man” reaching through the wall to grab the cars. What are you thinking?

I was thinking along the same lines, it shouldn’t bee too hard to attach a saw blade Battle-Bots style, or the tried and true Ben Hur scythes on the wheels.

VR Drone racing. League is heading into it’s 3rd year. https://thedroneracingleague.com/

There was some code modification after the first race with all of the cars safely driving at 45 mph.

They already have “car-less drivers”…it’s called “track & field”.

All things being equal every race should end in a tie.

Would it still be a “sport” if there weren’t any “athletes” (drivers) involved? And you couldn’t compare it with Drone Racing where the skill of the controllers is involved if they would really be self-driving cars, since car controllers wouldn’t be involved either. Maybe it would be a competition between the programmers of the self-drive algorithms as to which is best? F1 has rules against building even partially “self-driving” cars in that you can collect all the telemetry you want from the car but you can’t remotely control any part of it – you have to provide the data back to the driver and either let them make their own decisions or at best offer suggestions (perhaps strongly worded!) to them. But the drive has to execute them.

I don’t like the idea of driverless cars on the highways!!