Is there a faction within NASCAR who have decided that safety is about the sixth or seventh priority for their drivers, crews and fans? That would be sixth or seventh behind profit, "entertainment" value, profit, column inches written, profit, and maybe t-shirt sales?
Five weeks ago at New Hampshire, A.J. Allmendinger spun out of turn four when coming to the white flag. NASCAR allowed the entire field to run nearly the entire lap before half-heartedly throwing a caution flag when the leaders were coming out of turn four. The "reason" given for doing what they did was that NASCAR wanted to give Allmendinger a chance to restart and get going again. This is absurd. The leaders were all separated by several carlengths, and Allmendinger getting restarted would likely have given very few drivers a chance to take a shot at the driver in front of them on that last lap. Meanwhile, Allmendinger barely got rolling again amid a huge cloud of tire smoke, the field packed up accordion-style coming out of turn four and NASCAR got away lucky with just a couple of cars with bent sheetmetal. Let me repeat that: NASCAR got lucky. Can you imagine what the result would have been if Allmendinger hadn't quite gotten going, then somebody had come down the front straight, unsighted by the cars in front of him, and plowed at full speed into Allmendinger's driver side door?
After the lessons "learned" at Loudon, I'd have thought that that scenario would not play out again for quite some time, if ever again, even if NASCAR seemed to fail to understand that they'd done something wrong when they made statements about the situation in the press. I was wrong. For the second time in the last six races, NASCAR failed to throw a caution flag on the last lap of a race while a car sat stationary on the front straight, boradside across the track. This week at Martinsville while coming to the white flag, John Andretti spun coming out of turn four with a little help from a couple of other cars. Yet again, NASCAR allowed the entire field to run the full lap, at a track where the leaders would be arriving on the scene in 10-15 seconds. This is not a time or a place to trust that a driver is going to get a hot race engine restarted in a time-effective fashion. The only difference this time is that NASCAR never did throw a yellow flag, though they yet again got lucky in that the only result was some bent sheetmetal by cars packing up while trying to avoid the stationary Andretti.
I am certain that the "reason" that will be given for both of these events is because NASCAR wants races to finish under green flag conditions. I understand that, though I've made it patently clear in this blog on several occasions in the past that the desire to finish the last lap, or last half of a lap, or last turn at the expense of drivers' safety is idiotic. I remain convinced that a Green-White-Checkered finish will kill a driver, or worse yet, a fan or several fans, at a restrictor plate race sometime in the near future. We have had huge accidents on the last laps of the last two restrictor plate races at Talladega and Daytona this year, one with a car getting up into the fence and injuring several fans and the other with a car coming dangerously close to doing the same.
What has been NASCAR's response to these accidents? Nothing. Not "no more black and white decisions about yellow line infractions" and not "no more blocking allowed". Nothing. NASCAR is simply crossing its fingers that the accidents that we've seen are the absolute worst case scenarios and that nothing bad will ever happen again.
There is no question that the first priority for racing sanctioning bodies should be the safety of the fans, followed by the safety of its drivers. Failure to ensure that your fans are safe from flying race cars is an invitation to be bankrupted by a litigous group of families who have had family members who have been killed at one of your events. No disclaimer that's printed on the back of a ticket stub will prevent a talented prosecutor and a sympathetic jury from relieving a sanctioning body of tens of millions of dollars. Or, prevent congress from instantly stopping all of your activities, should they find that there was something that could have been done to prevent the massive loss of life of patriotic taxpayers.
It's not 1950 anymore, NASCAR. It's not enough to put SAFER barriers on all of the walls of your tracks and come out with a car that's marginally safer than your last one and then call it a day. Unless you continue to take action to ensure the safety of all of your participants, you deserve any bad things which come your way in the future. Here's hoping that I'm wrong and that you're right in your inaction, but I doubt it.
Let's see what happens at Talladega next weekend...
What Will They Say?
13 hours ago
12 comments:
Geesh, quite whining, they were consistent right?
Loudon and Martinsville, same occurrence, same result.
Isn't consistency one of the biggest complaints?
Well, you got it, it might not last but at least in these two cases it's there.
Does consistency count if it's consistently wrong? I'd rather NASCAR got it right every once in a while than not at all. Every time they fail to prevent an unnecessarily dangerous situation is another chance for somebody to get seriously hurt of killed. Eventually, you run out of luck.
Wrong in your eyes doesn't m make if wrong for everyone.
Example Andretti: "It wasn't a bad call," Andretti said in a statement on Monday. "To me, I wasn't in a great position, but I wasn't in an overly dangerous position. NASCAR focuses on the race itself, and they want to see the winner come across the finish line.
"It's probably the call I would've made. I would've gotten out of the way if I could've. But I had a couple of issues. The car was too damaged."
Jimmie Johnson said NASCAR was consistent with its effort of waiting as long as possible to throw the caution in an effort to not spoil an exciting finish.
Race-winner Denny Hamlin said he thought Andretti's car did not pose a threat to the other competitors and NASCAR made the right call.
"I think they're at least doing a good job of not letting it affect the top five finishing positions," he said. "They're doing all they can. They don't know what's going on inside that race car, if that guy has given up on starting it or is he continuing to try to get it going. I think as long as they let it play out, it's fine."
I believe that could be called "in the eye of the beholder."
But in this case they are also "beholding" the steering wheel not a mouse.reum
Two things:
1) Denny Hamlin maybe isn't the best person to ask, since the only car he had to avoid was Andretti, and he had a plenty good unobstructed view of him, with no other cars in the way. Similarly, Andretti wasn't having to deal with cars dicing around him while approaching a stationary car at full speed, so his opinion of whether or not he was in a dangerous position maybe isn't for him to say. I'd rather hear what Tony Stewart or Kurt Busch or somebody else who was back in the pack thought. That's lazy reporting on that AP writer's part. Or is it the work of somebody who doesn't want to ask the hard questions of NASCAR and put the sport in a bad light?
2) You left out the other part of Johnson's quote:
"It makes me a little nervous as I’m charging into the start/finish line and there’s a car sitting there,” he said. “I wish it would be thrown a little bit earlier for safety reasons. Might as well be on the safe side.”
My point exactly. Why is NASCAR screwing around with the sport's safety record, solely for the sake of the last 0.2 miles of the race to go green flag? You can't tell me that it's because 1000 feet worth of yellow flag ruins the previous 249 miles worth of racing. Would the race be less or more ruined by somebody plowing into a stationary car's driver's side door and sending that driver to the hospital? Maybe we should ask the drivers' kids how they feel about that.
I left out something? No, you added to his quote something that wasn't part of the article I pulled it from.
"I'd rather hear what Tony Stewart or Kurt Busch or somebody else who was back in the pack thought."
Guess you'll have to wish for something you probably won't get. Until then their thoughts are meaningless to the discussion.
"That's lazy reporting on that AP writer's part. Or is it the work of somebody who doesn't want to ask the hard questions of NASCAR and put the sport in a bad light?"
What's hard? He asked two drivers one supported NASCAR and the other did but added the caveat that he wished the yellow had been thrown earlier.
What was he/she supposed to do canvas the entire field of drivers?
Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly a supporters of any of the NASCAR beat reporters, or those that occasionally report on the sport.
Most are hacks and that's especially true in the Mayfield case as they have let him rant on uninterrupted with long strings on unsubstantiated BS.
Not once has he been called to task for some of the crap he's spewed out.
Oh, and BTW, cute how you ignored Andretti's quotes on the matter.
Andretti fit your criteria by being "back in the pack" by finishing 26th and clearly wasn't concerned about the situation.
Oh, I can’t resist:
"I left out something? No, you added to his quote something that wasn't part of the article I pulled it from."
Hey, after you posted your second response, I Googled NASCAR+Martinsville+Andretti. The AP story that I got contained all of the text that you quoted, plus JJ's quote. Sorry, but I thought maybe you’d left it out on purpose, because it was the only part of the story that didn’t support your opinion.
"Guess you'll have to wish for something you probably won't get. Until then their thoughts are meaningless to the discussion."
I disagree. Tony Stewart's thoughts are not meaningless, just unavailable. And yes, I'll have to wish for something that I probably won't get. Like NASCAR admitting that it has a problem with putting safety of its fans and drivers first. Or NASCAR being proactive about safety, i.e. not waiting until after a driver or fan has been killed before they take action.
"What's hard? He asked two drivers one supported NASCAR and the other did but added the caveat that he wished the yellow had been thrown earlier."
Hold on. JJ certainly did not support what NASCAR did. He said that what they did is consistent with what they've done in the past, but that's no ringing endorsement of what they did. In fact, JJ's been critical of NASCAR's attitude about safety in the past, namely after the last wreck at Talladega. And I applaud him for having the stones to do that.
"What was he/she supposed to do canvas the entire field of drivers?"
No, but asking even one driver who was back in the pack would have been a good start.
"Most are hacks and that's especially true in the Mayfield case as they have let him rant on uninterrupted with long strings on unsubstantiated BS. Not once has he been called to task for some of the crap he's spewed out."
Agreed on the first part but not necessarily on the second. I've read several columns where the writer clearly wanted Mayfield to go away and shut up. A column by Raygan Swan a couple of months ago comes to mind here. The jury's still out on Mayfield, literally and figuratively, and I kind of wish the media would stay out of it until all of the facts are in.
"Oh, and BTW, cute how you ignored Andretti's quotes on the matter. Andretti fit your criteria by being "back in the pack" by finishing 26th and clearly wasn't concerned about the situation."
I did ignore Andretti's quotes. He was not trying to avoid a stationary car while driving 100+ MPH and trying to avoid hitting other cars or maybe improve his position, so I'm not sure he totally understood the danger of the situation when he was being quoted. He was "back in the pack", but was not trying to avoid himself. Remember, I want the opinions of the guys who were trying to avoid HIM.
All I'm trying to say is that Sunday's situation came out OK, as did Loudon's, I'm just not convinced that it always will. I just don't want NASCAR's inaction to be the thing that winds up killing somebody someday. If it's something that happens as a result of a "racin' deal", that's one thing, but if it's the result of a dangerous situation that NASCAR could have prevented but didn't, then the blood's on their hands.
"We have had huge accidents on the last laps of the last two restrictor plate races at Talladega and Daytona this year, one with a car getting up into the fence and injuring several fans and the other with a car coming dangerously close to doing the same." I don't watch NAPCAR, but the Road and Track that reached my mailbox today tells that at Talladega, "several spectators suffered minor injuries as a result of that horrific crash" in 1987! How many years ago is that? NAPCAR can consider Paul Dana's fatality and Alex Zanardi's near fatality when they were t-boned AND this year's Talladega and Daytona NAPCAR races that you cited! But this is show business for rednecks. Safety is secondary.
I didn't see either of your posts until you replied to me on Oilpressure...
NASCAR introduced this mess back in the spring Talladega race in '93, I'd say. They called a red flag for rain (at least this was a REAL red flag, rather than the fake red flags they used to ensure green flag races starting in the '98 spring Richmond race), and decided to restart it with two laps left to ensure a green flag finish. Probably what they should have done is have them drive around in the light rain under caution or red flag the race and not try to restart it, given Talladega's history...admittedly, most of the REALLY bad plate wrecks there happened later.) We all know what happened. The drivers drove like maniacs. Rusty Wallace slammed Mark Martin into the wall entering the final lap, which ultimately led to his horrific flip, as he would have probably won the race had he not been such a moron. Martin somehow passed Wallace, but not before Ernie Irvan passed them both. Earnhardt ran out of gas and Irvan and Jimmy Spencer passed him. Spencer cut off the entire field, then Earnhardt punted Wallace coming to the checkered. NASCAR should have learned then never to restart a plate race with that few laps yet, and they rarely did for a while. Until the '97 Pepsi 400, when they ended with a one-lap shootout (and a six-car crash that cost Mark Martin the championship!) After that, they tended to end plate races under caution (thank God) until fans started throwing stuff on the track at Daytona in '02 then Talladega in '04 when the race ended under caution. NASCAR is afraid of what the fans will do if they don't restart the race? I don't know. It seems cowardly to introduce GWC just to appease pissed off fans... I liked GWC in the trucks, and didn't TOTALLY mind it in Cup at first (except on plate tracks), but too many late-race short-track near misses like that have convinced me GWC is really bad.
They've just increased the clusterfucks on the plate tracks with the screwing of Regan Smith last year. NASCAR will call anything in favor of a popular factor, and Tony Stewart hadn't won in 2008, had never won at Talladega, and was a fan favorite, so see you Regan Smith! Hope somebody may give you a crappy underfunded ride next year! Nice job passing somebody cleanly unlike Brad Keselowski in the very next race!
At this point, I favor blowing both of those joints up. Not only do the races suck hard, they are completely random and have nothing to do with driving talent (and actually not THAT much to do with engineering talent).
I meant to say popular DRIVER, not popular factor. Who knows where that came from.
Sean, amen and amen. Plate races are a three hour nap followed by a four lap lottery. I don't even bother to watch most of them, I try to time finishing yard work so that I come back inside with 10-15 laps to go. That's enough time for me to read the field rundown ticker, and then settle in for the last 6-7 laps of "racing". I seriously don't know why anybody would sit through a whole plate race, and I've felt that way for 6-7 years now.
I was generally opposed to G-W-C when they introduced it, basically because I'm a purist and think that a 400 mile race should end at 400 miles. If the last lap happens to be a yellow flag one, so be it. Now, though, I'm mortally opposed to them, because NASCAR has fostered a mentality that fans are entitled to a mind-blowing finish every week and they've given carte blanche to the drivers and officials to do whatever they feel like doing in order to ensure that spectacle, sanity and safety be damned. Red flags, restarts with 3 laps to go (ensuring that they can do a G-W-C after that restart), and spotty (at best) enforcement of rules are all in play. Where, might I ask, is Brad Keselowski's penalty for bump drafting at Talladega last weekend? Wasn't it bump drafting at the exit of turn 4 that touched off the accident that sent Martin tumbling and destroyed about 12 cars? Wasn't that a "draconian offense", as publicly stated in the driver's meeting? That's nice follow-up on your threats, NASCAR.
By the way, you and my buddy Rick (who reads and comments here occasionally) sound alarmingly similar in your thoughts. He's a big-time Martin fan, former NASCAR super-duper fan, and current NASCAR...whatever the opposite of super-duper fan is.
I still watch NASCAR (Cup only, not the joke Nationwide series) mostly because I can't afford a really expensive $60 or $80/month cable package to get SPEED. I actually watched Talladega straight through, but it was mostly background noise. While most fans bitched, for the first 180 laps or so until Newman's flipped, I disliked it less than usual because of the single-file hands-off racing. No, it's not racing but I'll take it after carnage. Of course the carnage happened anyway...
Martin? Yeah, he was my favorite for much of the '90s but he is really, really, really making it hard kissing Rick Hendrick's ass so much this year. I don't like Roush either (more than Hendrick), but Martin slapped Roush, the guy who saved him from being a rideless alcoholic journeyman, in the face by signing with Roush's archenemy. I jumped bandwagons periodically when I was a kid and I was an Earnhardt fan initially till I saw how dirty he was, then chose Martin for mostly being clean, then liked Tony Stewart for a while because of his "versatility" (I put that in quotes because now that people like JPM, Ambrose, Dinger, and though I can't stand him, Hornish are in the field, arguing Stewart is versatile by winning an IndyCar title against the major-league talents that are Billy Boat, Eddie Cheever, Mark Dismore, and Davey Hamilton is ridiculous, as surely Jeff Gordon or Ryan Newman or Kasey Kahne could have done that against the same field in that overpowering Menard car if they'd bothered). Now, I say Ernie Irvan was my retrospective '90s favorite (he was my second favorite to Martin at the time, so it's not totally out of the blue)...as aggressive as he was, he was more sincere than Earnhardt, Martin, or Stewart ever were. I DID want Martin to win the title this year, but I can't stand Hendrick, so I was kind of equivocal really. I will say this: four-peat was my last choice for any of the Hendrick or Stewart-Haas drivers winning it (well, I probably dislike Johnson less than Newman, but he didn't have a chance anyway semi-sponsorless and playing second-fiddle to Stewart.) Currently, I probably root for JPM and Kyle Busch (the Shrub is very reminiscent of Irvan to me, actually) more than Martin. They're much more interesting drivers...
In '97 I was a Martin fan so yeah, I was ultimately pissed that the Daytona wreck cost him the title. I couldn't stand Dale Jarrett but he had a legitimate gripe as well as he was black-flagged at Watkins Glen because his car was smoking and NASCAR thought he was putting oil down on the track, even though he wasn't, causing NASCAR to say oops. Between that and them ignoring Jeff Gordon jumping several restarts (which thoroughly pissed off Geoff Bodine, but when is NASCAR ever gonna side with ANY owner-driver?), changing the position on either one of those could have changed the title. Gordon knows he can get away with anything now, as does Johnson, so both of them have been jumping restarts all season since they went double-file...drives me bonkers. Yet they'll black-flag Rusty for it...
This year? Eh, I mainly picked Martin in the fantasy game 'cause I thought he was the best choice after Johnson, Edwards, Kyle Busch, Gordon, and Dixon were taken. I pick who I think the best choice is. If I picked only my personal favorites, no way in hell I'd contend to win. For instance, I can't stand Scott Sharp at all due to my inevitable bias towards most early IRL drivers especially one who bad-mouths road racing after making his name through Trans-Am, but he was still one of the top choices for ALMS, so it made sense to pick him.
I don't like Roush either (more than Hendrick)
Re-wording this: I don't like Roush either (but I like him more than Hendrick)
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