My thoughts on the historic truck race at Martinsville yesterday

"The Transporter" (transporter) 10/27/2013 at 14:35 • Filed to: NASCAR, Camping World, Truck, racing, Darrell Wallace, Kevin Harvick, Ty Dillon, sledgehammer, manchild

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Yesterday, Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr. won the Kroger 200 at Martinsville, making him only the second African-American to win a NASCAR national touring series race since Wendell Scott almost 50 years ago. It was an historic event and an excellent victory that Wallace earned every bit of. Unfortunately, his victory was overshadowed by the usual shenanigans that reminded me why I don't watch NASCAR anymore.

Even though I stopped watching the main NASCAR touring series, I still DVR the K&N Pro Series races because, ironically, the younger drivers at that level act more professional than most Sprint Cup drivers these days. Unfortunately, my DVR doesn't understand the difference between the K&N races on FS1 and the truck races or the 157 different NASCAR practice and qualifying sessions that occur each week and just records them all. With nothing to do this morning and the historic race still on my DVR, I figured why not. What could possibly go wrong with a truck race?

Well, that guy for starters. I forgot that racing color commentator and professional cheater Michael Waltrip called the races for the truck series. Way to represent the brand, NASCAR.

Anyway, I soon tuned out Waltrip's nasally Southern twang and settled into an otherwise enjoyable race. There was bumping and banging and rubbing and racing and many more potential double entendres that describe your typical short track race. Everything was going well up until the last few laps when "Happy" Kevin Harvick decided that he wanted to take the low line. This would normally not be a problem except for the fact that his teammate Ty Dillion was also using that line. This made Happy Harvic not so happy.

Now, those of us well versed in the intricacies of physics know that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time and an uninitiated spectator would be forgiven for assuming that the point of the race was to find new ways of proving or disproving this fundamental law. Unsurprisingly, nobody was able to disprove it, not even Happy. When he tried to take the low line from Dillon, he basically pit maneuvered himself on Dillon's front bumper and the ensuing carnage rolled up his car, Dillon's car, and Matt Crafton's car.

Now, I understand Harvick's anger, unfortunately it was directed at the wrong person. You see, the person he should have been angry at is himself. But instead of taking the high road and accepting the blame ruining the race for not only himself and Dillon, but for Crafton who just simply happend to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, he decided to throw a hissy fit like a little girl during the ensuing caution.

I'll spare you the boring details, but to sum things up cars were used as weapons, sledgehammers were thrown, words were said, and Twitter drama was had by all. It's really pointless to delve into the details as the melee could have been copied and pasted onto any one of a dozen similar incidents in NASCAR this year. And NASCAR seriously wonders why it's considered a joke by the rest of the auto racing community.

While Harvick, Dillion and that one pit crew-member who threw the sledgehammer must ultimately take responsibility for their own actions, the fact that they decided to resort to such actions should be surprising to no one, especially NASCAR and specifically Brian France. You reap what you sow when you're the chairman of a racing series and you say "Boys, have at it."

This kind of behavior isn't really a problem anywhere else. The reason? Other racing series have rules for unsportsmanlike conduct and - here's the kicker - enforce them (mostly). When Ryan Briscoe of Level 5 Motorsports decided to go all NASCAR at Lime Rock Park by trying to get his 551 P2 car to occupy the same space at the same time as Guy Cosmo's 01 Extreme Motorsports P2 car, Cosmo didn't return the favor. While Cosmo and teammate Scott Sharp were visibly upset after the race, they refrained from throwing sledgehammers or any other pit lane tools at the Level 5 team because they knew that IMSA would do something about the obviously avoidable contact.

So here I sit, and instead of writing about Darrell Wallace's historic victory I am instead writing about man-children behaving like man-children with cars and sledgehammers. I could delve deeper into the multi-layered issues with NASCAR, but that's for another, more in depth article that I plan to write in the future. All I have to say now is that as someone who was raised in the middle of NASCAR country and grew up liking, nay, loving the sport and all the legends associated with it, they lost me as a fan this year because of shenanigans like this. If they want the redneck fan base that badly, they can have it.

Good job, NASCAR. Good job.

davedave1111 > The Transporter 10/27/2013 at 15:03

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I was going to say that Nascar's biggest problem is thinking that a race-win is historic simply because the driver involved happens to have been born with a fairly dark shade of skin, but then I remembered that you lot did that for your current President, as well, so that's not just a Nascar problem :)

Seriously, though, I think Nascar's biggest problem is the one which leads to all the stupid decisions - like encouraging fights and crashes - which is that it has vastly more popularity, as a result of history, than it deserves as the low-level race series it currently is: it's just not competitive as motorsporting entertainment these days, when people have so many options. As a result, the management are floundering around, trying to use gimmicks to raise the entertainment level.

Nascar isn't a joke because of all the fighting and so-on. All the fighting is because the race series itself has become a joke.

George McNally > The Transporter 10/27/2013 at 18:44

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I'm 54 years old......I used to be a big fan back when Tim Richmond was banging fenders with Dale, Darrel, etc.

I'm not sure what has changed...well I *know* what has changed- large amounts of money came into the sport and it became a victim of it's own success.

How to fix it? I'm not sure it can be fixed-it's kinda like a red giant star....it's best days are behind it and you know it's a matter of time until it becomes a black hole.

The Transporter > George McNally 10/27/2013 at 19:17

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Well, we all know that the problem is Brian France. I was a big NASCAR and CART fan in the '90s and into the early 2000s before I joined the Army in 2002. Spending most of the next 9 years on the other side of the world meant that I lost track of what was going on and stopped following them. When I got back into both a couple of years ago everything had changed. Brian France took over from his father, COT, fuel injection, more cookie cutter ovals, "Boys, have at it", and Jimmy Johnson (who I had never heard of before) won 5 championships, just to name a few. And I didn't even touch on the whole CART/IRL/IndyCar SNAFU, which is another matter entirely.

I'm not saying that everything that's changed is bad. Fuel injection wasn't the boogeyman that the haters were making it out to be and, in 2012, helped usher NASCAR into the last quarter of the 20th century, and Jimmy Johnson has been an excellent champion and spokesman for the sport. But racing stickers with the COT, cookie cutter tracks, and "boys, have at it" have dumbed down the sport for the passive fans who are merely in it for the crashes and the spectacle, leaving the real fans out in the cold.

I think it can be fixed, but the medicine is a pill perhaps too bitter to swallow.

George McNally > The Transporter 10/27/2013 at 20:41

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I absolutely agree with you. I think some of the tech is good (fuel injection for example) but I don't think we will ever get back to the mindset that existed back in the "good ole days" until NASCAR craters and someone besides Brian France is at the helm. Yeah, I know that is fairly unlikely to happen......

JimSlade > George McNally 11/04/2013 at 19:38

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Tim Richmond was and will always be...one of the greats. Good to see someone else who respected Tim's ability.

Matt Brown > The Transporter 11/04/2013 at 20:23

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Excellent article, very well written

The Transporter > Matt Brown 11/04/2013 at 20:33

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Thanks.

nglauer > The Transporter 11/04/2013 at 20:48

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Very well written. Just curious, you go by Pistol Pete... are you the same Pistol Pete Pistone from XM and MRN?

The Transporter > nglauer 11/04/2013 at 20:50

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Tragically, no.

nglauer > The Transporter 11/04/2013 at 21:17

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Still a good read regardless. I have followed NASCAR for years and agree completely with you. I'm not sure they will ever be able to fix the sport - I fear it died with the greatest ambassador it ever had. Dale Earnhardt Sr. The intimidator understood the sport because he came from the old school. I have wondered many times over where the sport would be had he not died. His son does not have the voice he did, although he does help to direct the sport.

A-J-I > The Transporter 11/05/2013 at 06:09

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There's a happy medium somewhere.

As a very casual NASCAR fan (I'm a Brit, and watch it whenever I can, but that ends up being not very often and usually only Nationwide) and I tend to enjoy it. I even like the "have at it" spirit, but it does start getting a bit daft when things start getting dangerous.

At the other end of the scale, there's F1, where people get punished for celebrating wins and most drivers are like media puppets.

If NASCAR could tone down the bit of it that has people throwing sledgehammers or has a driver's girlfriend slapping another driver, that'd be great. Would certainly reduce the "joke" aspect.

Though feel free to disregard this, since I'm not as into the sport as some other commenters here and there may be deeper problems I'm not aware of.

The Transporter > A-J-I 11/05/2013 at 10:01

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I think you've got a good grip on the situation. The full contact aspect of NASCAR on the track is just the nature of the beast. It would be asinine to expect 43 cars to not contact each other on a 1/2 mile oval, however, there have to be logical limits. Even the NFL has rules about things like pulling on an opponents face guard or blows to the head. Tackling in American football may be a necessary part of the sport, but there's no reason to make that aspect more dangerous than it has to be.