Feb 18, 2008

The Silly Season Starts as it Ended

It is with a sense of dèjá vu that I write this. Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart have taken an on-track incident into an off-track fistfight, and NASCAR officials have done virtually nothing about it. Welcome to the 2008 Sprint Cup season, which seems a lot like the 2007 and 2006 Nextel Cup seasons. Only the name of the series has changed, but not to protect the perpetrators. It seems that NASCAR is intent on doing that while simultaneously trying to appear as if it is cracking down on bad behavior. And even in the world of NASCAR racing, a fistfight between two drivers probably rates as bad behavior.

Of course, in its never-ending quest to be all things to all people, NASCAR has simultaneously said it plans to "lighten up" on its drivers this year in a new attempt to let their personalities come out. To which we say, watch what you wish for. This new attitude is supposed to enable the guys with big personalities like Dale Earnhardt Jr. to be themselves and to stoke interest in "the show." And as we know, stoking interest in "the show" is really what NASCAR is all about.

Interestingly, in his first meeting with reporters after the new pronouncement, Junior used his newfound freedom to express himself to say that he thought the newfound freedom of the NASCAR policy was essentially a farce. He called it window-dressing for the press and said it had never been communicated to him by anyone in NASCAR and that so far it had had no effect on him whatsoever.  Surely those were just the kind of comments NASCAR was looking for when it made its pronouncement.

Meanwhile, after their fracas, Stewart and Busch, the Ali and Frazier of Sprint Cup racing, have been given a wrist slap in the form of probation. Just what "probation" means is open to question, but it appears to have the same kind of effect on Stewart and Busch as it would have on Osama bin Laden if NASCAR were to put him on probation. (And perhaps to garner some good publicity, they should, since he has obviously committed some bad behavior of his own.)

So suffice it to say, the nut doesn't fall far from the tree and the 2008 season so far has an amazing resemblance to 2007. Could we have expected less? Should we have hoped for more? In any case, it's good to have cars, even cars as low-tech as the Cars of Tomorrow, on the track again. Welcome, NASCAR! You might not be the most beautiful girl at the dance, but you're sure the most interesting.