NASCAR, Wake Up And Smell The Coffee!!

I have asked this before is this column
and I’ll ask it again. Has NASCAR completely lost it’s marbles? NASCAR seems to
be going out of its way to remove any fun or personality from the sport that we
have all come to love and appreciate. No climbing up on the roof of your car to
hoop and holler about kicking the butts of 42 other drivers. No carrying the
American flag around the track in a solid show of support for our country. A
country that men and women are overseas right now defending, some which will do
so with their lives in the very near future. No speaking out on issues that
really need to be brought up in the fear that we may hurt the sensitive feelings
of a sponsor or two.

It has become quite clear to me and to a
lot of fans of NASCAR racing that it’s all about the money anymore. Give an
organization the size of NASCAR 2.8 billion dollars and all of a sudden they
seem to forget where they came from or who their fans are. Their focus now seems
to be on the wine and cheese crowd that hangs around the hospitality suites a
couple hundred feet above the speedway. I really have the feeling that NASCAR is
not going to be happy until most of the drivers are pretty boys with South
American accents or Finnish names or British habits. Sterling and Kenny will
definitely not fit in with this crowd. Pretty soon we’ll see the podium drivers
hustled into a room, sat down in front of the media and asked inane questions
about the race, about things that nobody outside that room even cares about.

The real fans sit in the stands and we get
to, and want to feel the rumble when 43 800 horsepower monsters go storming by
as soon as the green flag drops. These fans wouldn’t consider it racing if they
couldn’t smell the smoke and exhaust of these beasts when they thunder past. I
sit in row twenty at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway each March and every single
time the green flag drops, the hair on the back of my neck stands up, my heart
rate doubles and the adrenalin starts to pump. And I’m only in the stands. I
wouldn’t trade it for the world. I wonder, when was the last time Mike Helton
sat that close to the start of a race and experienced it like the rest of us
fans? I’d hate to think he would get a little bit of tire rubber in that glass
of champagne.

All Jeff Gordon wanted to do was hop up on
the car and celebrate with his usual "I kicked your asses" whoop and a
couple of bars of PVC were placed there to keep him from doing just that. He
looked right at the official there and said, "you guys won’t let me have
any fun anymore." Amen Jeff. I’m not much of a Gordon fan but this was one
time he has my vote.

NASCAR has decided that climbing up on the
cars is causing too many cars to come back dented and under the height
requirement. So what? How many times has this happened over the past year?
Twice? Yep, it’s an epidemic. Every single driver who climbed on his car knew
full well he risked this. And you know what? Most of them could not have cared
less. It’s a time for celebrating with their crew, their fans and their
families. Not according to NASCAR.

Sterling Marlin wanted to show that he was
an American, just like Junior did a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to do his
part in showing the bastards in the Middle East that we’re still here and we’re
not going to quit being Americans just because they’re morons. Seemed like a
simple enough deal. Dodge is returning to the winners circle with some very good
runs lately. Sterling is showing he can still out drive most of them young ‘uns.
And America is at war. Flying the flag should have been supported by one and
all. Oops. Not by NASCAR. I’m surprised they let him carry it over to the
winners circle.

Next, it’s going to be against the rules
for the crew members to stand on the wall and cheer their man on to the
checkers. One of them might take a header off the wall and plop into the grass
below. Oh wait, that happened a couple of weeks ago. Shame on you guys. You
should know how dangerous that is. Of course, after watching Sterling’s crew run
across the grass last week, this might not be a bad rule. Some of them need to
be saved from themselves.

I’ll tell you what. Whoever wins this
weekend should pull his car over under the flag stand, jump out and and hop up
on the roof and yell like a banshee at the crowd. Even wave an American flag if
he can get his hands on one. Might even thumb his nose at the official in the
flag stand screaming at him to get off his car and stop waving that infernal
flag. You’ve got my vote, whoever you may be.