And I Quote

And I quote . Wally Dallenbach.

"While NASCAR officials are trying, unsuccessfully, to curb
extracurricular stuff on the track, pits, and pit road, Dallenbach doesn’t agree
with people who think it’s an embarrassment. "I’m not saying it’s bad for
the sport. We need a little entertainment in it," he said in a column
written for NBCSports.com."

End quote.

Now, let me get this straight. Wally Dallenbach doesn’t see anything wrong
with spinning someone out on pit road after a race, in retaliation for some
wrong suffered on the track during the race. He thinks it’s okay for this kind
of behavior to continue and he thinks it is good for the sport of NASCAR racing.
Entertainment is what he calls it.

I wonder what would have happened if the folks walking on pit road hadn’t
been paying attention and one or two of them had been injured by Juniors’
sliding car. Would this have been enough entertainment for Wally or would he
have wanted to see even more, maybe like slow-motion replays and plenty of
"color" commentary? Granted, pit road is a dangerous place and one
needs to be on their toes every second they are out there. But, after the race
was over and calm should have been returning to their race-crazed lives, someone
might walk across an empty pit stall, minding his own business, only to find
himself getting flattened by a 3400 pound stock car.

Robby obviously didn’t learn anything from the Tony Stewart incident last
year and I think the token $10,000 fine placed upon him by NASCAR was wholly
inadequate for his actions. It is also quite obvious that Robby has no clue what
to do on the race track, especially when a lapper is involved, whether that
lapper be himself or someone else. We saw this at Sears Point last year and he
demonstrated it again at Bristol this year. He is a hothead that needs to have
at least one zero added to that fine and hopefully that will wake him up to
smell the coffee.

Don’t get me wrong, Dale Jr. was not at all innocent for his part in the
altercation and drawing a fine was entirely warranted. If you want to take out
your vengeance on another driver and rough him up a bit, then you do it out on
the racing surface, where the fans and officials expect to see a little carnage.
Not on pit road where you begin to involve the members of your teams, the
officials, the press and even a wife or two. Pit road is not the place for this
idiotic hit and run garbage.

But this column isn’t about the farce that has become NASCAR (the suits).
It’s about the comment made by Wally Dallenbach. I place his comment right up
there on the Stupidity Meter(R), right alongside those made by Benny Parsons,
when he tries to tell us that suicidal 40-car packs at the plate tracks is
exactly what the NASCAR fan wants to see. This may be the kind of stuff the
"new" NASCAR fans want to see but, I don’t know too many of us
longtime fans that think this is the way things should be. I don’t know of
anyone personally, outside of my fifteen year old son, who thinks that incidents
on or off the track are cool, when they can result in injury or death.
Incidentally, he stopped believing that way after he was involved in a couple of
crashes while racing his go kart.

The worst part of all of this is that with all the new fans coming to NASCAR
in the last couple of years, there are going to be a lot of them that think the
words from Benny and Wally are gospel and are going to be the ones who stand up
and cheer when they see wrecks, especially if Jeff Gordon is involved. They hope
to see "The Big One" every time they watch one of the plate races and
I’m sure there are a few out there that won’t even take a restroom break for
fear of missing it, forgetting that those crack television crews will make sure
to show it fifty times, from ten different angles and twelve different in-car
cameras.

Wally, crashes and spinning cars on pit road are not entertainment, and I
think it’s past time for you and Benny to pack up your microphones and hit the
road, if you want to continue to think this way.

"And I quote ." Hmmm? Sounds like an excellent idea for a regular
column from my poison computer keyboard. With plenty of people like Wally and
Benny around talking up a storm, I’m sure I’ll never have a problem finding
material to comment on.

As always, race hard and clean.

Dave Casey