NASCAR didn’t conspire to prevent Kurt Busch from winning Sunday; it was
merely following its consistently inconsistent policies.
Quick, someone grab
tinfoil. Someone else cue the black helicopters. And would someone
please instruct Brian France to go sit behind the grassy knoll. Because
if you're to use social media as your barometer -- always a dangerous
preposition -- NASCAR most certainly conspired to fix the ending of
Sunday's race at Auto Club Speedway.
The controversy centers around a
debris caution NASCAR issued on what would have been the final lap of
the Auto Club 400. Thinking a piece of metal was in Turn 3 and erring on
the side of, well, caution, officials waved the yellow flag to setup a
green-white-checkered restart.
Conspiracy theorists contend
NASCAR did this because Kurt Busch was leading and headed towards
certain victory. It would have been Busch's first win in just his second
start since returning from a highly publicized suspension, following
allegations he assaulted an ex-girlfriend last September.
The contention is that Busch
would have been unseemly to have in Victory Lane, after a Delaware
Family Court commissioner determined he "more likely than not" grabbed
his former girlfriend by the throat and smashed her head against the
wall. After all, NASCAR is a family sport with an image to uphold and
sponsors to protect.
Not to disappoint those who
believe Big Brother colluded to take victory from Busch, but there were
no vast conspiracies Sunday. What NASCAR has is a consistency problem,
not an integrity problem.
Too often in similar
circumstances one decision contradicts another made earlier. And that
contradiction only fuels the perception NASCAR changes its rules and
procedures to help whatever narrative best suits its interests.
Sunday for example, the
controversial caution NASCAR issued with Busch out front was because
officials spotted what was thought to be a piece of metal. OK, on the
surface that's understandable. ACS is a high-speed track and a punctured
tire could be catastrophic. When in doubt, safety trumps all.
Why then was there no caution
when Greg Biffle crashed on the final lap of the second
green-white-checkered restart, right before Keselowski completed the
deciding pass of Busch in Turn 2? From NASCAR's perspective, if Biffle
can get going the race will have a natural conclusion and not end under
the yellow flag. Something all involved want to see. That is exactly
what transpired Sunday.
"I want to be clear," said
Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing
development officer, Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "If we can race
back and we don't believe we're putting the competitor in harm's way,
we're going to do that. But we'll always err on the side of safety."
Where NASCAR leaves itself
open for criticism is if caution is warranted for a fleck of metal, a
yellow flag would seem necessary for a wrecked car that surely left a
debris trail in its wake. If safety is the overriding concern, then
presumably the race should be stopped immediately for a crash even if
all involved drive away. Any decision otherwise would seem to be a
contradiction against this stance.
NASCAR does itself no favors
by consistently being inconsistent. During the season-opening Daytona
500 a final lap multi-car crash occurred on the backstretch. The yellow
lights came on and what was setting up to be a classic finish ended
under caution. Contrast that with Sunday's accident where Biffle not
only wrecked, but in an area where the leaders would go through at
speed. What happened? No caution.
"We have to look at the
incident and the safety of the drivers first and foremost," O'Donnell
said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "When we looked at (the Daytona 500)
incident and Kyle Larson hitting the wall at a high rate of speed, we
felt we needed to dispatch the safety equipment immediately. That was
despite where we were in the race. We needed to do that.
"If that were the case in
Daytona where Kyle may have just glanced the wall and drove off, we
would have raced back. What you saw (Sunday) was one of those instances
where a driver was able to get set and race off in time where we knew we
had some time to make the decision. The decision was made to let them
come back to the checkered flag."
Eradicating these types of
inconsistencies would go a long way to dispel the notion NASCAR attempts
to manipulate the outcome. What there needs to be more of is
accountability and transparency.
And on this front NASCAR has
made tremendous strides. A common practice now, which rarely occurred in
years past, is for officials to speak with reporters when something
questionable transpires. Already this season, NASCAR officials made
themselves present following the Daytona 500 group qualifying fiasco,
the following week at Atlanta Motor Speedway when several cars failed
technical inspection and again Sunday to explain the caution, no-caution
ruling.
Increased cameras and
technology on pit road is another initiative NASCAR has enacted to
better ensure both accuracy and accountability. No longer are penalties
issued because an official thinks they saw a foul occur. Every penalty
called is supported by video evidence.
"We don't have any favorites,"
Sprint Cup Series director Richard Buck said Sunday. "We try to keep
every emotion out of it. ... We work very closely in a very dynamic way
to identify the situation and look for the solution to it, then that
solution is backed up by multiple layers. So we feel very, very
confident about our actions."
Sports are contested under the
premise everyone involved -- competitors, refs, coaches, etc. -- are on
the up-and-up. Without that essential fundamental sports is no
different than scripted fare, or as Busch so eloquently radioed his crew
following Sunday's fateful caution "WWE," the acronym for World
Wrestling Entertainment, which no league with any semblance of
credibility wants to be compared to.
Although decisions made in the
moment may at times look otherwise, NASCAR is neither scripted nor
predetermined. The stakes are too high and the consequences too severe.
As for the consistency element, let's call that a work in progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment