Let 'Em Slug It Out

Fan Commentary by Grandstand Bob

One of the reasons auto racing is so popular is that most people can identify with driving a car, and if you’ve driven a car anywhere near another person, you can also identify with road rage. Like we fantasize about driving 200 mph, we also fantasize about letting those idiot drivers have a piece of our mind. Both are frowned upon, but wouldn’t it be cool if they weren’t.

Since we can’t do these things, we live vicariously through our Sunday afternoon heroes. The most fanatical of us can delude ourselves into thinking that we’re in the car with Dale, Jeff or Rusty, and we get the adrenaline pumping as if this were really true. So, when someone does our driver wrong, we want to see him take care of it, right? Of course, that kind of depends on who your driver is. I don’t think any Terry Labonte fans are holding their breath to see Terry open a can of whoop-ass on someone. That’s not Terry’s style, and his fans admire him for his restraint. Hell, I admire him for his restraint, but I can’t identify with it.

In the short time we’ve known him, we’ve known that Kevin Harvick is not afraid of mixing it up, and he’s attracted fans with similar mindsets. They know that Kevin won’t hesitate to lay on the chrome horn, and they know that he’s not afraid to express himself with equal assertion off the track. So, what would they have thought had Kevin emerged from his smoking heap during the Bristol Busch race with the “aw shucks” attitude? That would be like watching Charleton Heston give Rosie O’Donnell a big sloppy kiss. It shouldn’t happen, and that brings me to my point.

It's extremely ironic when NASCAR cites drivers with the catch-all, “actions detrimental to racing,” for getting in fights. That's like saying bikinis are detrimental to Baywatch. Fights, by nature, are some of the best things that can happen in racing, because they draw out our vicarious desires and they are the unfortunately all-too-rare-in-racing shows of emotion. If you want actions detrimental to racing, look at the damn “security restrictions” and scanner monopolies at ISC tracks, but I digress.

From the time Cale duked it out with Donnie and Bobby, fans have loved a good fight, and good fights keep fans interested in such inane events as restrictor plate parades.

Now, does this mean that I want to see Mike Tyson-like spectacles in the garage area after every race? No. You have to keep drivers from seriously hurting each other, and you can’t let anyone fight for just any reason. Buckshot would get his butt kicked on a regular basis if that were the case. No, you can’t explicitly endorse off-track violence, but you can refrain from penalizing people for expressing their emotions.

Like most of you, it really perturbs me to see my favorite drivers muzzled for the sake of public relations. If you’ve ever used a scanner during a race, you know that there is a huge difference between what drivers will say during an interview and what they really feel – except for Tony Stewart. God help us if they succeed in stomping out the “bad seeds” like Tony and Kevin. Can you imagine what NASCAR would be like if they cloned Jeff Gordon? I’d sooner tour with the Backstreet Boys.

So what would I have done to Bristol’s bad boys – with the exception of Robby Gordon, not a damn thing. Greg Biffle punted Kevin Harvick, but that’s racing at Bristol. If we don’t let them bang on each other, we lose the allure of stock car racing. Ditto for Jimmy Spencer and Kurt Busch, though Jimmy deserved to get his butt kicked by Jack Sprague for wiping out a perfectly good car. However, considering the size differences, Jack was wise to stay on the wall. Maybe he should have sent his fabricators after Jimmy, since they were more affected by the bonehead move.

If I were Junior, I would have handled Robby Gordon the same exact way. As much as the media would like to have us accept Robby, he just doesn’t get it. This wasn’t the first time he raced leaders when he wasn’t on the lead lap and then acted like it was someone else’s fault, and it won’t be the last. Junior maybe could have talked to Robby, rather than causing unnecessary damage to both his and Robby’s cars, but I don’t think words would have had any effect on Robby.

Robby’s last move, the spinning of Junior on pit road, was the kind of signature bonehead move that keeps Robby alienated from the stock car family. You’ve crossed the line, when you put others at risk, and spinning a car on post-race pit road is definitely putting others at risk. For that, Robby should have received a suspension. Yes, Tony should have received one last year too, but someone has to be first.

So, there you have it. Let’s let the boys be boys. I don’t think that would be at all detrimental to racing.

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