Then they will have to find shoes which are competitive, doesn't seem that crazy to me. It'd be great if footraces continued to advance consumer shoes like stock car racing advances consumer vehicles.
Not a very good example, stock cars are effectively ancient in many ways compared to modern cars. For example they only started playing with (indirect) fuel injection a few years ago.
Aren't stock cars literally by definition modern cars? They're cars currently available in the stock of consumer retailers. That's the whole point of the game isn't it?
Stock car racing's history traces to Prohibition era moonshiners. They had to upgrade their cars to get away from authorities but had to do so without raising suspicion. NASCAR races can be in excess of 200 miles per hour when race track conditions allow it which only extremely high end sportscars can do (NASCAR engines are up to 900 horsepower).
By definition, they are cars that look like they're consumer cars but inside they're made to be powerful racing vehicles.
some time ago stock car racing was just that, but these days the types of cars manufacturers run in stock car racing are purpose built race machines that have only a passing superficial relationship to what you can find at a dealer.