I’m no connoisseur of dirt-oval racing, but from what I’ve seen, sprint cars are more or less the pinnacle of oval racing, at least in terms of speed and potential for things to get pear-shaped quickly. Those are really enough of a draw to makes fans of those who witness sprint car racing first-hand, but there are always those who make the dismissive notion that dirt racing is “just driving in circles.” Without overstepping my bounds, let me suggest that the outsider of that opinion possesses no understanding of subtlety and nuance. Like any simple stick-and-ball sport, such simplifications like “Basketball is just putting a ball into a circle” deny the “Majesty of How,” so to speak, that makes all sports competitive.

There’s a certain wall between seeing and understanding that, short of doing, is difficult to breach. However, this World of Outlaws (WOO) video on the basics of sprint car racing really tries to explain the sport’s Majesty of How. In less than five minutes, WOO driver Greg Wilson covers most of the big topics from sprint cars’ oversized wings to driver safety gear in a totally relatable way. It’s a great primer that informs a great deal about what it’s like to race one of these 1,400-pound, 900-horsepower animals in traffic with 20 other drivers managing the same beasts.