If you’re not on twitter, you may not have already seen Jeff Gluck’s article about the late race caution at Fontana. For a quick recap…Kasey Kahne made a comment about the caution right before his big wreck being a “phantom” caution (My quotes, not his), insinuating that Nascar had thrown the caution in order to bunch the field up and make for a more exciting finish. This type of accusation has been made about Nascar before, most notably by Tony Stewart a few years back when he said Nascar was becoming WWE. However, Jeff Gluck, a well-respected (by myself as well) Nascar writer wrote an article where he posited the idea that it didn’t matter if Nascar had intentionally thrown a caution if the end goal was to make the race more exciting and interesting for the fans. The article can be found here…
http://www.scenedaily.com/news/articles/sprintcupseries/Jeff_Gluck_Kasey_Kahne_says_debris_caution_was_bogus_but_so_what.html
Now, I understand the need to make a Fontana race more exciting. But there are other ways, for instance Don’t Race At Fontana being one of them. Through various posts on Twitter, Gluck has maintained his position and supported his argument with various points. And some are interesting and somewhat valid points. After all, the entire points system is reset for the chase, why not actual race positions at the end of a race? Another argument was that while it may change the outcome of a race, so do double file restarts. To get the full report follow Jeff Gluck on twitter. Actually you should do that anyway, he is after all a fantastic writer who is very knowledgable about Nascar. But on this issue he is wrong. Dead wrong.
There are reasons that people and Americans in general are obsessed with sports. One is what I’ll call “The Dream”. This is something that appeals to American sensibilities in particular. After all, it’s the American Dream. With hard work, dedication and talent, a person can succeed. The son of a cotton mill worker without a high school education becomes an American Icon. Sound familiar? It should, because that’s Dale Earnhardt. Another reason is that no matter who you are, black or white, tall or short, that sports have always been the great equalizer. Talent is all that matters. That’s why baseball and football were racially integrated before the rest of the country. That’s why Tiger Woods’ immense talent put the spotlight on a behind-the-times sport. We’re a superstitious bunch, us fans. We already think that there are weird forces aligning against our favorite drivers and teams. We scream at what we think are biased refs and at bad calls. The various bad calls and dubious rules provide enough fodder for a 24hour sports channel to exist and thousands of blogs, including this one. We want rules applied fairly no matter who you are, because if they aren’t then the dream and promise of sports dies. If sports lose their integrity, why bother with the sport? Why do you think people are so infuriated at the steroids scandal in baseball? Because integrity matters.
It’s exactly because of this that Jeff Gluck is wrong. The mere implication that Nascar is somehow pulling some sort of metaphorical set of strings to affect the racing is enough for fans to make the leap from affecting the quality of the race to affecting the outcome of the race. And believe me, once fans start to get the idea, right or wrong, that the outcome of a race is predetermined, then the gig is up. The dream is over. It’s not the idea that a single phantom caution is so bad. What is so bad is that Nascar has opened the door to speculation that the purity of competition has been compromised. As for the assertions about The Chase being reset and the double file restarts, etc. Those are rules that a driver knows going into a race and into a season. A random caution isn’t something that a driver knows about. That’s a wild card that’s just as egregious as a blown pass interference call in a playoff game.
I understand the desire to make races more interesting, but to use other sports as an example, home runs and touchdowns may be more exciting, but every once and awhile you get a pitchers’ duel or a defensive struggle. You don’t change the rules mid game to make it more exciting. You play by the rules that are set. A better option might be to get rid of boring tracks like Fontana, Chicago, Kansas etc. How many complaints about boring races do you hear about in regards to Bristol or Richmond or Darlington? You can’t screw with the integrity of a game by changing the rules in the middle of the game. This is something every parent teaches their kids. You can play god all you want, but unless you really are, then you just look stupid.
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