WEEK FIVE – THE SENTINEL, DARLINGTON, AND COSTS

With Darlington in the books, NASCAR
segues to an even nastier track in Bristol. And the baggage of the 2001 season
is in tow as well –

The safety overkill continues with the
Sentinel’s rationale for examining Earnhardt’s autopsy photos. That the Sentinel
is interesting only in bashing NASCAR rather than in an honest look at the
photos is shown by editor Tim Franklin’s explanation about a crisis in safety in
NASCAR. His paper did a lengthy examination of safety that was misleading in its
comparison of the safety records of NASCAR and the three major open wheel bodies
– F1, CART, and IRL – and seemed to go out of its way in attacking NASCAR’s
approach, never mind that this approach had and continues to work just fine. The
piece focused a lot on the HANS collar, which has become a tautology of recent
and which, despite the ever-escalating hype, has not proven to have been what
would have saved the lives of drivers killed in the last two seasons.

The AP’s summation of the piece noted that
"NASCAR seemed to be the most secretive, most unresponsive, and least
likely to adopt safety measures that had been proven to save lives." The
idea that it does not do so because such devices are not truly necessary is a
fact the Sentinel and others refuse to consider.

And the Sentinel only has to read the
autopsy report itself to see what there is to see – namely that Earnhardt’s
injuries to his torso and legs would likely have finished him off regardless of
whether he wore the HANS or not. Requesting the photos themselves only betrays
the NASCAR-bashing agenda that is the real source of its "crusade."

That "crusade" took on a
perverse angle when the Sentinel made a big deal out of Mike Helton’s comment on
examination of the photos during the Darlington weekend. Helton said a medical
expert had examined the photos for NASCAR after Earnhardt’s death. David Byron,
of Volusia Country, FL, initially said that this had not occurred – "The
autopsy photos have not been released nor have they been viewed by anyone other
than the medical examiner’s office," he said to the Sentinel on Sunday
night.

But on Monday Byron retracted this denial.
A communication breakdown kept him in the dark about Dr. Steve Bohannon’s
examination of the photos on February 19th, the day after Earnhardt’s death.

The Sentinel now has egg on its face, and
if it hasn’t already apologized to Helton, it should.

Mike Mulhern got in some shots of his own
during the Darlington weekend in his NASCAR Notebook on the 18th of March. In
reporting on grumbling by some car owners about NASCAR leadership, Mulhern noted
six issues of contention –

"No, NASCAR doesn’t plan to change
the rules for Talladega despite the 19-car crash at Daytona and the Earnhardt
death." Nor will NASCAR mandate the HANS collar and publicly it isn’t
overly worried about small Grand National fields. It won’t elaborate on what it
is doing behind the scenes, has not publicly addressed the issue of softer front
end roll bars, and has not commented on soft wall tests, whose results are
called "positive," done by Tony George with NASCAR help.

The HANS collar isn’t the cure-all some
feel it to be, and the fact one cracked in a crash, not to mention the helmet of
Tim Sauter at Atlanta, is disquieting. Soft walls aren’t all that hot, either,
as we’ve seen in actual races over the past several years. And why elaborations
of what NASCAR is doing behind the scenes are better than keeping everything
quiet is a question the media needs to consider as it pushes NASCAR for answers.

On Talladega rules, why rules that
produced 49 lead changes at Daytona should be changed is bizarre. People blame
the 19-car pileup on them, never mind that they tore up quite a few cars in the
Grand National race at Atlanta and also saw some tough hits at Rockingham and
Vegas. The sport is supposed to be about competition, and 49 lead changes among
a field packed together fighting it out for 500 miles is the apex of competition
– something the sport needs not only at Daytona and Talladega, but Rockingham,
Pocono, Atlanta, everywhere.

More shots come from a Stock Car City
piece on what NASCAR can supposedly learn from F1 in safety. The piece included
a list of seven –

Making safety rules and regulations
available to the public
Being proactive in safety
R&D
Preparing all parties to better handle
accidents and emergencies
A traveling medical team
Requiring competitors to follow all
safety regulations
Nonstop testing of safety gear and
other parts that affect the driver
Having their story straight with the
media.

Again, it needs to be asked why openness
is necessarily better than "secrecy." And when did any sanctioning
body ever accurately guess what safety problem would crop up and thus be able to
prevent it? Moreover, the third part ignores that NASCAR handling of emergencies
isn’t terribly inadequate – it has to be good to keep racing. Nor is a traveling
medical team necessary – if anything it is nothing but a needless luxury, with
tracks providing topnotch medical teams already.

Five and six are already done, just not by
NASCAR itself. And seven assumes that NASCAR or anyone else truly had the story
before going to the media.

Darlington showed the need for
Daytona-Talladega-style racing at more tracks. Whoever was leading could pull
away from the rest of the field, and the aero-push was back yet again. Steve
Park had the strongest car but lost on late stops to Dale Jarrett.

This is the antithesis of competition.

Dodge, meanwhile, had a decent day as
Sterling Marlin racked up another top five. John Andretti’s turnaround took a
big leap with his sixth place effort, while Ward Burton didn’t run that well but
still garnered a top-fifteen.

Short Grand National fields illustrate the
costs that are becoming a problem in the sport. And virtually the only team
owner who has made a big issue out of it is Andy Petree.

Joe Gibbs has also spoken recently about
costs, but it was more in relation to whining about FOX TV’s handling of
sponsors – FOX has not provided the airtime freeloading of previous networks,
and there is concern that somehow it is hurting sponsor exposure. Trouble is
that such concerns are not justified – the sponsors get the same amount of
exposure they got before, just not more. And FOX’s approach to sponsors isn’t
even relevant to the issues of costs.

Gibbs did get in a terrific crack when
Jack Roush claimed that Gibbs is one reason for rising costs via his attempt to
hire more people and thus split workloads. "If it gets down to a money
thing, Jack is going to win. Jack has a lot more money than we do."

Not only Roush, but Rick Hendrick and
Roger Penske, and now also Chip Ganassi and Cal Wells.

NASCAR needs to look at the issues of
costs and do something via restrictions of parts and also on numbers of cars in
a team’s fleet. It also needs to start looking askance at money guy team owners,
something it did with JD Stacy and Carl Kiekhafer.

The only question worth asking about the
Robby Gordon/Morgan-McClure soap opera is why the McClures ever wasted any time
talking to Robby in the first place.