NASCAR is as tough as any sport on earth. Still, many people refuse to call it a real sport. ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith became the face of that take when he argued that NASCAR drivers are highly skilled. But, not true athletes. To him, it is pro football and basketball players who deserve that spot. Now, Cincinnati Bengals legend Chad Ochocinco Johnson is firing back. He completely dismissed Smith’s claims and issued a direct challenge.

“He doesn’t know what he was talking about, because he hasn’t been here,” Johnson said on a recent episode of On The Gas With Ryan Blaney. “So, if Stephen A. Smith is to come out here and experience this in the passenger seat… it puts things into context in a better perspective on why they are athletes”

Johnson can truly speak from experience. Alongside Blaney, who won the Quaker State 400 last Sunday, the Bengals legend rode shotgun around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at speeds approaching 200 mph. Without taking anything away from the NFL, the NBA, or other sporting leagues in the country, Johnson immediately explained why NASCAR feels different.

“What they do here is life or death,” he said. “Not the NFL, not the NBA, one wrong move can cost him his [the driver’s] life. You have to be very athletic to do what they do here.”

NASCAR drivers do not run across a field as Johnson did in the NFL. They do not physically dominate rivals like NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal. However, driving demands immense physical strength.

They need tremendous endurance and must sustain high heart rates for hours at a time, something athletes across most sports that Smith considers “real” sports also do. They also have to regularly train their backs and necks to withstand the high G-forces generated during high-speed cornering. Then comes the skill factor. Drivers possess unique reflexes that, in all honesty, neither Smith nor anyone who has not trained rigorously to become a racing driver can replicate.

The NASCAR community did not take Smith’s comments too well, as expected. Three-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano said in an interview earlier this year that Smith was just trying to “stay relevant,” whereas former driver Kevin Harvick declared, “If you don’t know anything about racing, just keep your opinion to yourself because you shouldn’t even have an opinion if you don’t know anything about a sport,” on FOX Sports.

Stephen A. Smith isn’t someone who backs down from a verbal tussle, as he has shown over the years with multiple stars across the NBA. He may well respond to Chad Johnson’s remarks as well. Whether he accepts the Bengals legend’s challenge to ride shotgun in a NASCAR stock car with someone like Blaney, however, remains to be seen. If he does, his opinion of the sport might just change.