Forget trying to convince us race car drivers are athletes. After this week, race car drivers are going to need to work overtime to convince us they know how to drive.

The week began with the revelation that Brazil was forcing three-time Formula One series champion Nelson Piquet to undergo an intensive driving course after losing his license because of an accumulation of speeding and parking tickets.

Granted, Piquet is being reprimanded by Brazilian officials for doing the very thing that made him an F1 success -- driving real freakin' fast. So at least that makes some sense.

The same can't be said for four-time Indy 500 champion A.J. Foyt's vehicular miscue, which involved a bulldozer plunging into a lake.

Fortunately Foyt escaped the incident unharmed, and the way we see it, that basically gives us free license to make fun of it. You'd have thought an accomplished Indy Car driver (top speed, somewhere in the neighborhood of 230 mph) would have no trouble handling a bulldozer (top speed, 6.25 mph).

But you'd have been wrong.