Perverting history

As is to be expected in this era of forced patriotism and blind support of the military, NASCAR has forgotten what Memorial Day is supposed to be about. This weekend, NASCAR competitors will run with tires that say "Support Our Troops" instead of "Eagle." However, since this is all about the advertising, they will still say "Goodyear."

Need I remind anyone that the point of Memorial Day is to remember those who have fallen in service to their country (or corporate overlords as the case may be), not to go all RAH! RAH! for the military.

Memorial Day began as Decoration Day in the late-1860's -- a day to remember those who died in the Union cause during the Civil War. It remained a day of remembrance for the Civil War up until the time the US got involved in World War I - a war fought among European colonial powers. It became a federal holiday in 1971.

But, as they say in wrestling, going all pro-military is cheap heat for NASCAR and its reactionary supporters. And to further pervert the original meaning of the day, I guarantee you that there will be confederate flags on poles and t-shirts all around Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Of course, in fairness, Major League Baseball isn't much better in "celebrating" Memorial Day by having teams wear uniforms with camouflage script.

Making it up as we go along, NASCAR-style

NASCAR has long fought the impression that stock car racing is the equivalent of professional wrestling on wheels. Rules have had a funny way of changing on the fly to suit one driver or another - or one manufacturer or another. No one ever had a win taken away if it turned out later that they had cheated by using illegal parts afterward. Spinning the car out in front of you wasn't punished - it was encouraged.

Now, twice in a week, the boys in Daytona Beach have monkeyed around with their own "playoff" system in order to protect the "integrity" of the racing. First they penalized Martin Truex because his teammate deliberately spun himself out late in the Richmond race last weekend. There was no evidence that Truex had anything to do with the manuever - yet somehow it was determined that deliberately spinning yourself out is a just not acceptable.

After penalizing the members of Michael Waltrip Racing, Truex was out of the playoff and Ryan Newman - who had been leading at the time of the spin - was back in.

But then there was Joey Logano. Apparently his team had a deal in place with another driver to let Logano pass him late in the race. By making the pass Logano picked up enough points to knock fan favorite Jeff Gordon out of the playoff. So, in true NASCAR fashion, the rules were changed in midstream and Gordon was added to the playoff.

NASCAR chief Brian France claims these changes were made to preserve the integrity of the racing. Meanwhile, in order to fill a field of 43 cars every week, teams are allowed to qualify then pull their cars into the pits early in a race in order to avoid damaging their cars. What happened that night in Richmond happens in race after race - it just so happened that this time it was in a race that was made the artificial end of a regular season.

The NASCAR rulebook, it seems, is written in pencil.

Last year I wrote about why Bud Selig would make a good judge as to 4th Amendment issues as he was able to ignore the fact that Ubaldo Jimenez lost a perfect game due to a blown call with two out in the ninth inning. Brian France, however, would be more than comfortable sitting on the bench today as he is more concerned with the outcome than the process.

Mucking it up down in Richmond

I finally reached a point last Saturday night where I couldn't sit and watch the BYU offense run at will against the Longhorn defense I was told was much improved over last year's disaster. Well, numbers don't lie and the defense laid an egg of epic proportions in the Utah desert.

So I flipped over to the stock car race. For those of y'all who don't follow NASCAR, a few years ago they implemented one of the dumbest ideas in all of sports. They decided that instead of crowning a champion based upon his performance over the course of the entire season that they would create a 10-race "playoff" to determine the champion.

The details aren't important but how much sense does it make to put 12 drivers racing for a championship on the same race track with 31 other drivers who are just racing for money? But that's neither here nor there.

On Saturday night as the race wound down Ryan Newman was leading. If he won the race he would be in the playoff and Martin Truex would be out. If he lost, he would be out while Martin Truex would be dancing.

With but a few laps remaining Clint Bowyer spun bringing out a yellow flag. The cars came into pit and, when all was said and done, Ryan Newman was no longer in the lead. When the checkered flag flew, Ryan Newman was out of the playoff and Martin Truex, Clint Bowyer's teammate was in.

The next morning all anyone could talk about was the suspicious finish to the race. Then NASCAR got involved and pulled audio that led them to believe that Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR), the team of both Truex and Bowyer, had manipulated the end of the race to benefit their drivers. As a result, NASCAR fined the team a significant amount of money, took away 50 points from the drivers and suspended their crew chiefs. Adding insult to injury, the penalty knocked Truex out of the playoff and put Newman back in.

So, if we are to believe NASCAR in this, the person who caused the mess suffers no harm while Truex, an innocent bystander, is docked points for something he had no control over. Where is the justice in that?

But what was the problem? NASCAR is full of multi-car teams that share garages and testing data. The teams build cars for each driver using data they have gathered from races and testing sessions. They swap crew chiefs and pit crews sometimes.

MWR did what teams do - they worked to get the best possible outcomes for their drivers. It's a time-honored tradition in auto racing. In Formula 1 drivers are under team orders to do what benefits the team leader. This was no different.

The plot thickens as NASCAR looks into whether Joey Logano's team made a deal with another driver to take a dive.

NASCAR was upset because it appeared MWR made deliberate moves to impugn the integrity of the race. Really? NASCAR is legendary for the invisible "debris on the track" yellow flag when someone gets too big of a lead late in a race. NASCAR encourages drivers to "beat and bang" on the track. Drivers have spun out their competitors late in races in attempts to win -- and everyone then says "that's racing."

Sure, maybe the ending of the race left a bad taste in some mouths - but so what? NASCAR still tries to market itself as a bunch of good ol' boy moonshiners driving around in circles in souped-up sedans. The reality is that NASCAR is a buttoned-down corporatized enterprise that's more concerned with image, television ratings and sponsorship dollars.

Still, as far as I'm concerned, what happened on Saturday night was "just one of them racin' deals."

Preventing the "Big One"

My youngest daughter was sick this weekend so there we sat in the living room yesterday watching the tube. We alternated who got to watch what. She'd watch one of her shows on Nick Jr. and then I'd watch thirty minutes of the NASCAR race from Talladega.

As the race drew to a close the leader spun out and the yellow flag came out. There was going to be a frantic pack finish at NASCAR's longest and fastest track. Sure enough, the cars all moved in one giant amoeba-like mass as the next-to-last lap began. Due to safety concerns (allegedly), NASCAR mandates the use of restrictor plates which reduce the amount of air flowing into the engines. This keeps everyone at roughly the same horsepower and ensures that cars will run in a pack since a car running by itself is a sitting duck due to the aerodynamics of running nose-to-tail.

As the cars came through turn three on the final lap they started to jockey for position for the dash to the finish. Tony Stewart was on the bottom and in the lead. Matt Kenseth was running high and was in second. Then Stewart went low to try to block a driver and that's when all hell broke loose. As Matt Kenseth drove through turn four a massive 25 car wreck took out more than half the field less than a mile from the finish line.



NASCAR claims it restricts the speed of the cars to promote safety at a track where cars once reached speeds in excess of 210 mph. But the real effect of the restrictor plates is to create massive wrecks like the one that happened yesterday. TV audiences want wrecks and NASCAR delivers. It's a miracle that no one has died on the high banks of Talladega Superspeedway.

If NASCAR is really concerned about safety it's time to do away with the restrictor plates. If NASCAR is really concerned about safety, it's time to keep the cars from running in massive packs where one little wiggle can cause "the big one."

If NASCAR really wanted to make Talladega (and Daytona) safer they would reduce the size of the engines from 357 cubic inches (5.7 L) to 302 cubic inches (5.0 L). Next they would reduced the compression ratios in the engines. Reducing the engine size would reduce the horsepower which would reduce the speed. Lowering the compression ratios would also reduce the horsepower and speed of the cars. More importantly, however, is that these changes would affect the cars differently. Instead of everyone having a car with the same maximum horsepower, these changes would reward those teams who can find ways to go faster.

The end result would be no more pack racing. The racing at the track would be closer to what you see at other large racetracks. With more space between the cars there would be less chance of 15- and 20-car pileups.

Of course NASCAR won't do anything unless they are forced to do it. It will be up to the drivers to get together and make a stand. If anything is going to happen, it will happen because the drivers tell NASCAR that they won't race at Talladega until something is done to make it safer. Back when the track first opened in the 60's, the drivers went on strike and refused to race because they didn't feel it was safe. NASCAR sent in a bunch of replacement drivers and that quelled any dissent from the drivers. That ended dissent in the ranks.

With drivers today adorned in corporate logos from head-to-toe it's doubtful that anyone would be willing to stand up and make a stink. But, unless someone has the courage to speak their mind nothing will change.