Perceptions..What do fans see

H

HardScrabble

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Sometimes seems that fans, sportswriters, and even drivers maintain perspectives on specific on track occurences which baffle me. As I am sure my perceptions will baffle some as well. But being ever curious, let's look at two instances late this season and some perceptions of them.

I chose these two because 1) They are recent occurences and 2) They involve drivers fans have a kinds established image of.

Fall races at two short tracks, Bristol and Martinsville. While significantly different in their character, both tracks are known for tight quarters and bent fenders. Both races had pretty exciting finishes.

Understand that you can accurately state I am personally a fan of both drivers or you can maintain that I am not a fan of either driver. You would be just as accurate in either statement.


At Bristol Rusty Wallace held the lead in the closing laps, with Jeff Gordon tight on his rear bumper. There was some lapped traffic, Jeff closes on Rusty, gives him a bump which upsets Rusty just enough for Jeff to make the pass. Rusty is unable to get back to Jeff and Gordon takes the checkered flag. There was a lot od discussion about Jeff's move (much of it negative) and speculation on when Rusty would "even the score"

At Martinsville, Kurt Busch holds the lead as the laps wind down. Hot on his trail is Johnny Benson, who may just have a faster car, may not. As the laps wind down Johnny gives Kurt a shot to the rear bumper, but Kurt bobbles only slightly and Johnny can not make the pass. The laps conclude and Kurt takes the checkered flag. Seems that most fans are only congratualtory on how clean a racer Johnny is. matter of af fact if one reads many of the commets following Johnny's first WC win a few later, the bumping never occured. But I assure you it did.
 
Ok...what are your perceptions then? You can't just call us out on ours without offering up your own.
 
My perception is that there is no difference at all between the two situations. The results, that Jeff was able to pass and Johnny was not, are irrelevent ot the actions.

It is a part of short track at both these venues and unless there is something which makes it obvious that the bumper had a clear intention to wreck the bumpee, are perfectly acceptable.
 
My perception is that Jeff Gordon did his work a bit better than did Johnny Benson.

Allow me to bring a third incident into play which will better illustrate my point. When Jeff Gordon used the horn on Rusty Wallace, he did it with skill. Rusty made no contac with anything else, merely had the ability to nail the throttle at the required moment taken away from him.

When Dale Earnhardt Junior used the horn on Ward Burton in the first race at Bristol this year, he did not apply it as skillfully, as Ward ended up in the wall, his day done.

Timing is everything.

Had Johnny timed his application of front bumper to rear bumper differently, the result would most certainly been different as well. He didn't, it wasn't, and that's that. No one except Johnny Benson knows what he was trying to do with his "love tap" on Kurt Busch, therefore he is the only person who knows if it yielded the desired result or not.
 
Cannot claim with any certainty that the incident between Jr and Ward is of the same nature. One of the reasons I did not use it as an example. It may well have been a mistake on Jr's part with no intent to make contact.

All of these drivers will make mistakes where contact occurs and was not meant to. We have all seen examples of that.

In the two incidents offered for comparison there is no question of intent, based upon drivers comments following the race.
 
I agree that the Jr-Ward does not apply to the question asked. The jr incident was a combo of Jr getting in to hot and Ward squeezing down.

The point about it being the exact same thing is correct. It does not matter the result. The result was due to the effectiveness of the bump. Benson was headed to the outside of busch when he bumped, which did not allow him to move inside and past. Where as Jeffy was able to get inside of Rusty.

I personally wish Rusty would have been able to get back to Jeffy.
 
i dont see anything wrong with either incident, bumping is part of short track racing, jeff had to do it to rusty to win, he didnt wreck rusty, just moved him, and if benson would have bumped busch to win, then he did what he had to to win, if he would have wrecked him for the win, then thats goin to far.
 
A bump is a bump. Personally, I don't agree with it but accept it as a part of short track racing. If it must happen, it should only be applied if the second place car is faster and the leader is blocking.

What I did see in the two incidents mentioned was that Gordon had a faster car at that point in the race than Rusty. His tap was well executed and after the pass, having the faster car, stayed well in front of Rusty 'till the checkered flag.

At Martinsville, Benson placed a feeble tap to Busch, who by virtue of the lack of aggresivness in the tap and through driving skill, managed to pull away. Had Benson been able to pass as a result of the tap, it is my opinion Busch would have caught him quickly and placed a tap in return and gone on to take the win anyway. The question is, under identical circumstances in either scenario, what would your favorite driver have done??

The difference in most cases is which driver the fan supports, leading to bias in the thought process of who was the offender or the offended.:)
 
hey, if they did not wreck the other guy out, then things are cool. if the other guy did wreck trying to over correct, then everything is cool. if the bumper pushes the bumpee into the wall, that is not cool. that is my perception. that is what nascar is to me.
 
Originally posted by judas1
hey, if they did not wreck the other guy out, then things are cool. if the other guy did wreck trying to over correct, then everything is cool. if the bumper pushes the bumpee into the wall, that is not cool. that is my perception. that is what nascar is to me.
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Agreed judas, and skill plays a big part in using the chrome horn!

That's just short track racing, and I love it :)
 
Guys, guys, guys. This one is easy. First though, let's go back to last year if we can. Remember when Kevin tapped Ricky and got around him? Now wasn't that the same thing? However, the perception of the driver, Ricky, not Kevin, is that this was don maliciously and needed to be retaliated against. It was lucky that Ricky didn't hit on his first attempt because Kevin would surely have been slammed so hard into the wall that he might have been hurt. But that didn't happen and Ricky finally calmed down to do the bump and run thing. The perception here is that Ricky didn't even do anything until the last incident. Wrong. Ricky tried to retaliate, but missed the first time. I've seen this happen many times and I laugh when they fail. If you've been to a short track and listened to the scanner, you will have no doubt heard a driver or two or 43 talk about someone around them. They talk of what they are going to do to them if something happens again. It doesn't matter that they might have been the one to start the process. One thing is for sure, the old vets believe they have the right away out on the track and when they encounter another old vet, somethings going to happen. If a guy is trying to get around another car and is clearly faster, he's going to bump the guy until something happens. On the bigger tracks, they try not to bump, but instead take the air off the deck and make the car wiggle. All of these things are in the rules of the road so to speak and some guys use them more often than others. The ones who use them more often get a reputation. The ones who don't, also get a reputation. Who's better? The one who wins the most. Damn, did I write all that. Sorry.
 
Well my simple perception is: Fans see what they want to see!:) Depends on which fan of what driver sees it as good move or bad move.:D
 
How come in Dale Earnhardt's time...a "genius" move on his part was considered rough driving when other drivers did it?
 
You never heard me say that Paul.......when it happened to Dale, I could laugh it off as a "racin' deal"!:) Though, sometimes it was hard.:D
 
That's cool...though I would say 80-90% of race fans were really only Earnhardt fans...and 90% of those people could absolutely not stand it if Earnhardt got a taste of his own medicine.

I'm not passing judgement on the driving style, more on the hypocritical nature of NASCAR fans to refuse to see things from both sides. They automatically turn on the stupid switch when their driver is involved in an incident. And, sorry to say...the most obvious group to do this was/is Earnhardt fans. :)
 
I will only say, I don'tlike seeing cars bumped out of the way but it happens. As long as driver a who bumps b out of the way doesn't get mad when driver b returns the favor I have no problem.
I have seen drivers put others into the wall and say it was just racing. Then when they get bumped and kiss the wall, they rant and rave about how the expletive deleted idiot should get punished, or I will remember that and get even.
So I guess in short what comes around goes around.
 
Agreed, Paul. But, Earnhardt was sort of unique......you either loved him or the you hated him!! No inbetween.:) If Earnhardt got some of his own medicine, the non fans would taunt the fans........it seemed always to erupt into war. Still goes on even now.....but that's the way some people are. Hard to let go of those emotions no matter what side of fence you fall on.:) It also spills over onto Jr, DEI, and RCR even today......just something we DE fans have to get used to.:)
 
Hey, us Earnhardt fans are just big teddy bears!!:D


Well, some aren't.........but we welcome any help we can get!!:D
 
I have no trouble with a well-executed bump-and-run. I'll admit that I was yelling at JB to run up there and give Kurt a good nudge out of the way.

I had no problem with Jeff nudging Rusty out of the way. It was a work of art. I'm sure Rusty would have returned the favor if he could have gotten to Jeff's back bumper.

Although I was upset when Jeremy did a perfectly executed bump on DE, I did appreciate the artistry.

It's racing. :D
 
I know it's racing, I don't think that's the issue at hand.

What people are finding upsetting is the complete inability for "fans" to call their own favorite driver out for things they will call another driver out.

Like, "I can't believe Gordon would bump Rusty. Rusty should get up there and bump him"

How stupid can you get? :)

It isn't the racing that we're talking about TRL.
 
I never said it's hard to be an Earnhardt fan.....I'm no martyr.:) It's actually pretty easy to be a DE fan......it's fun to watch the wars.:) Guess you can say, "been there, done that".

But, then, I'm older than about 95% of the fans on this forum and I learned a long time ago to not take this stuff too seriously.........though, I will admit I stumble every now and then and go back to my old ways of the eighties and nineties when I had to fight tooth and nail "the good fight".:D
 
"Oh brother".........Cutie says that!:) Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad.......depends on the tone of voice!:) So, it that good or bad?
 
Let of the gas,when you are dealing with the ass.Right Wrangman.;)
 
I don't know that I've ever gotten upset over any driver bumping any other driver out of the way --- especially for the win.

I so wanted JB to win at M'ville, I would have screamed bloody murder at DE, if he'd taken it away.
 
I'm ready to put the brakes on pbunch.......I'm not going to change anyone's mind and I know it.:)
 
Originally posted by paul
Ass?

Imagine if I started calling people "ass".

Screw you pbunch.
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Thats it PAUL,i don't know what your problem is,But I am done here.:(
 
This started out to be an interesting conversation, and has degenerated in name-calling and tempers flaring.

This is subject on which no one will ever agree. We all have our favorite drivers, and sometimes we see them through rose-colored glasses.

Lay off each other. I'm decidedly not happy right this minute. In fact, I'm down-right disgusted.
 
Yes I still love you Paul.Nobody adjust your sets.I love all you folks.:)
 
< singing >

Sunshine day! (everybody singing) Sunshine day! (everybody singing) Its a sunshine daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy.....
 
Brady Bunch...don't know if those are the exact words...never really jammed to the Brady Kids that much....;)
 
Anyone who can jam to the Brady Bunch is just plain weird!:rolleyes:
 
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