It's a sport. Here's how I get there:
Horse racing is a group of sports in which a team of people attempt to pair an optimally designed (or bred, if you prefer) horse with a good driver (jockey).
Horse and carriage racing is a group of sports (harness racing, or if you go back a bit farther, chariot racing). To compete you need to have an optimally designed horse and carriage, and a good driver.
Car racing is a group of sports. For this we get to dispense with the horse, and the carriage gets a bit more complicated. You still need good design, and good driver, and you add in a pit crew to make adjustments during breaks in play (i.e. pit stops) for the types of car racing that last long enough to have them. The people designing the cars, building the cars, maintaining the cars, and driving the cars are all considered part of the team.
If you look at FIRST, it looks a lot like car racing (particularly in 2008
). We have a designed and constructed vehicle, a driver, a pit crew, and the intervals between matches are very much like pit stops. We even have the same sponsorship issues, if on a different scale.
As a side note, the International Olympic Committee recognizes both chess and billiards as sports. Non-Olympic, sure, but so is baseball.
