SAFETY RACINDEALS
A QUOTE: "Never
ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by
incompetence." – Napoleon Bonaparte
PR’S THE PROBLEM: I don’t
think there’s anyone who can say that NASCAR was adequately
prepared to deal with the death of Dale Earnhardt. A crass person
would say that that NASCAR should have had enough practice over
the last year, with the deaths of the other drivers. But I’m
willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’d change "incompetence"
in the quote above to "unpreparedness" in NASCAR’s case.
RE-OPENING WOUNDS: Like a
little kid picking at a scab and keeping the wound from healing,
the Orlando paper is still at it, making sure the controversy
over the cause of Dale Earnhardt’s death is kept alive… that
sells more papers, don’t you know.
They’ve come up with a guy who claims to be
the paramedic who was in the driver’s side window of the car,
trying to aid Earnhardt. He says the belts were intact.
He may very well be the person he claims to
be, but there are a few troubling questions:
- Why did he wait over two months before
coming forward? - Why did he talk to the Orlando paper
instead of any other paper? - Did the Orlando paper pay him any
money for his statement?
When you read anything from the Orlando
paper, remember, they have an agenda against NASCAR, and take
ANYTHING they report with a very large grain of salt.
SNOWBALLING: When a news
reporting organization starts making news, then they need to stop
reporting on what it is that’s making the news. The Orlando paper
is a good example of this.
They started making the news when they
tried to get access to the autopsy photos. At that point, they
lost their objectivity (if they ever had it to begin with) and
became involved in what could only be termed as a conflict of
interest.
Since then, the "reporting" of
the Earnhardt death/NASCAR controversy has been more hearsay than
anything. The Orlando paper claims one thing or another in an
article, then other "news" organizations use that
article as their source to write their stories.
That’s how Helton’s quote of "We don’t
know why, we don’t know how, we don’t know when yet" gets
turned into "NASCAR says the belt broke". It’s like
that old party game called "Gossip," where the host
whispers a phrase into one guest’s ear, they whisper it down the
line, until it gets back to the host. Then they compare what the
original phrase was with what the last person heard, and it’s
always different.
There hasn’t been any real news on this
situation for a few weeks now. All we have now is reporting of
other stories.
A CHALLENGE: Do you think
NASCAR is hiding something? Are you one of those people who
think that NASCAR is sitting idly by while drivers continue to
get hurt or killed? Do you think Mike Helton really knows what
happened, but is keeping it out of the public eye for some reason
or another?
If you answered yes to any of those
questions, then I have a challenge for you: find another sport
and stop watching NASCAR races of any kind, including those at
your local Saturday night NASCAR sanctioned track.
After all, why would anyone want to support
a sport that thinks that the leaders of the major sanctioning body
are implicit in the deaths of four drivers over the last year? If
you continue watching it, then you’re basically saying, "I
approve of what NASCAR is doing."
WHAT IS
NASCAR COVERING UP?: Patrick Zier asks the $64,000
question in his column in the Online
Ledger out of Lakeland, Florida, and comes to a very rational
conclusion: nothing. Like Michael Daly’s latest column posted here (shameless
plug), this is one of the most reasoned and rational columns I’ve
read about this whole mess.
BEAM ME UP: Looks like
Mike Beam didn’t learn from someone else’s mistake. He’s out for
two races because the dates were not visible on Ricky Craven’s
seat belts last Sunday.
For an organization that’s purportedly
dragging its feet in the safety issue, they sure have suspended
and fined a lot of people lately over safety issues.
It’s funny that the same media that are
calling for NASCAR’s head because of their supposed lack of
action on safety gives these crew chiefs a free pass, calling the
rules infraction a "technicality."
HAVE YOUR NEWSPAPER CALL MY
NEWSPAPER: It was reported that Bill Simpson was
supposed to meet face to face with NASCAR bigs this week. But it
seems that no one told NASCAR. Simpson apparently just showed up
at the NASCAR offices, expecting to meet with the higher ups
there.
That’s the kind of stuff that happens when
you have a "dialog" via the news media.
RACING SAFETY: There’s
only one way to make sure that no more drivers get killed or
injured in a race: ban racing. Is that how far this issue will
end up going?