Four time NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship winner Jimmie Johnson has been named the AP Athlete of the Year. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

G Forces in the corners, even on the flattest oval track, can make a driver’s head feel like it weighs about 100 pounds. And those constant gravitational pulls can sap strength in a hurry if a driver isn’t spending some time in the weight room and doing those aerobic exercises on a regular basis.

In a race situation, each car is surrounded by 42 others, some of them only inches away, at speeds up to 200 mph.

I agree that there are drivers out there that don’t look like athletes. Many don’t show defined muscles. A few even have a beer gut. Most look like your average guy.

But don’t let that fool you. By the above definition, these guys are participating in a sport and they are athletes.

Longtime NASCAR driver Dave Marcus didn’t look much like an athlete. He looked like a farmer in a driver’s suit, especially wearing those black wing-tipped shoes that he favored for racing.

But Marcus was one of the strongest people I ever met. His grip was as firm as a steelworker’s, and he handled those big stock cars in the days before power steering like they were kiddie cars.

Nowadays, you don’t have to be Hercules to drive a stock car, but you do have to be in shape, and there is no way you can let your mind wander at the speeds you are traveling.

Then there’s the crashes.

We’ve all seen cars barrel-rolling and going end-over-end down a racetrack and then having the drivers walk away without injury. They get checked out at the infield care center, then walk out to a battery of microphones and talk about what they just went through as if it’s just part of a day’s work - because it is.

Hey, Joe from Apex. Could you do that? Could most ordinary people?

Medical studies have been done on race drivers from all categories of the sport that show their heart rates and blood pressure remain impressively low at even the most stressful times.

So, yes, these drivers may not look like LeBron James, Tom Brady or Derek Jeter. But they are athletes just the same.

Way to go Jimmie.

– Mike Harris can be reached at mharris@racintoday.com

Mike Harris was the long-time auto racing beat writer for the Associated Press and is now a frequent contributor to RacinToday.com