Another opinion from a writer I like a lot.
NASCAR OPENED THE FLOOD GATES LONG AGO
Monte Dutton
Gazette Sports Reporter
Funny how some NASCAR drivers have become strict constructionists, all of a sudden. You’d think they were talking about the Ten Commandments. Instead they’re talking about races that end under caution.
It’s almost as if there’s a big sign in the garage area that reads:
WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE RACING TO ANYONE
Yes, races have ended under caution-flag conditions since the first time a few sportsmen decided they’d like to know how fast their horseless carriages would go.
But NASCAR has been abandoning its traditions as if the money-grubbing governing body were wriggling out of a cocoon. Hey, give us back North Wilkesboro and Rockingham. Then we’ll talk about yellow-flag finishes. Make it where we can tell the cars apart without headlight stickers. Let’s have cars on the lead lap because they deserve to be there.
“It seems like they’re trying to do a lot right now in a little bit of time, and it’s getting kind of confusing, I think, for the fans, for the drivers and for the teams to figure it all out,” said reigning champion Matt Kenseth.
“They tell us 500 miles, or 400 miles, or 500 laps or whatever,” said driver Ken Schrader, sounding as if he were imitating John C. Calhoun. “That ought to be the deal. It sounds more like a pickup game or something: ‘Hey, I know we said we’d play to 20 points, but let’s go to 25,’ or something like that. The football game not that exciting? Play a fifth quarter.”
This from a man who thinks the new playoff system is just peachy, mind you. He thinks it’s OK to pull out of Rockingham like a thief in the night. Wonder if they’re still mowing the front straight in North Wilkesboro? Wonder if another rusting utility building has burned, or if one of those old hospitality suites has started to list when the winds roll in off the Brushy Mountains?
Schrader thinks the Southern 500 doesn’t have to be run on Labor Day weekend — and that, in 2005, it doesn’t have to be run at all — but he’s going to draw a line on the notion that races might be extended a couple extra laps to give the fans a full-speed finish?
Look … I’m a traditionalist. I think if NASCAR hadn’t foisted about a thousand cheap charades on the public, they wouldn’t have to worry about fans pelting the track with beer cans “‘cause Junior didn’t win.” They threw that idiotic red flag at Richmond in 1998 without telling a soul it was going to happen. In fact, it could be that they thought it up on the spot.
But they’re stuck with it now, and they’ve created a monster with all the new fans they attracted with all those thrill-a-minute ads that assault the senses and apparently hypnotize the masses into marching hypnotically into the tracks and nodding their heads as NASCAR strips them clean.
Meanwhile, all the drivers, sounding pretty hypnotized themselves, have gone along with every demeaning edict from the Daytona cartel.
But, now, all of a sudden, most of them don’t want the races to end at full speed, huh?
“It’s like changing the rules in the middle of the race,” said Schrader. “It makes it difficult for the race teams to figure, and it can easily change the outcome in a way that is probably not going to be fair in the long run.”
Oh, you mean, like a system that bases the entire championship on 10 races at the end of the year? Or maybe one that requires that its teams spend 40 percent of their budgets on engines that develop 65 percent as much horsepower, and they have to spend those exorbitant sums on only two races at tracks run by the same people who run the races?
“There are no guarantees in racing,” said Kyle Petty. “There is no guarantee that when you buy a ticket to a race, that you are going to see a green-flag finish. It’s like the weather. There is no controlling the weather on race day, and there is no controlling the outcome of a race.”
No controlling the outcome of a race? Apparently these guys haven’t been paying attention.
But you know what? NASCAR officials are going to announce a new way to provide green-flag finishes, and as soon as it comes out, the drivers are going to start singing new tunes.
That’s the way it was with the new playoff system (I try to use that insipid term “Chase for the Championship” as little as possible). That’s the way it was “say goodnight, Rockingham,” “competition red flags” and common templates (that’s “aero-matching” to you, bud).
That’s the way it is with everything.
The proud ones will say, “Well, let’s give it a try and see what happens.” The rest will say, “Wow! What an idea! The leadership of NASCAR is truly extraordinary.”
Remember when racers didn’t have to be “lucky dogs”? Remember when proud men could race without being utterly beholden to the Lords of Big Bubba?
The Kool-Aid is ready. Drink up, boys.
