The Monday Rant: NASCAR

Feel free to flip to a different post now.  I don't know if any of my readers are NASCAR fans, and I briefly considered starting a new blog for my rants because they are usually way off topic from housewife things, but this is my blog and I don't really care if it is scattered in every direction.  That being said, I don't mind if you don't want to read about NASCAR.  It won't hurt my feelings, we all have different interests and that's just fine.

That being said, for those of you who do follow NASCAR, I am sure you are all too aware of the controversy surrounding the Saturday night race at Richmond and Clint Bowyer's  untimely (or timely for those who are Truex Jr. or Logano fans) spin.  The fans have spoken and the reaction is not good.  There is outrage and disappointment,  with some threatening to never watch again if Bowyer is not punished by anything less than having his head on a stick paraded through the infield during driver introductions. 
Had this been one of the ubiquitous Busch brothers or, for that matter Tony Stewart back in his evil driver hey day, there probably would not be as much as a backlash.  After all, you expect that kind of behavior from them.  But this was Clint Bowyer, the "Aw, Shucks", beer drinking everyman of the sport.  The kind of driver who always seemed to be exactly what he appeared to be: no pretense, not fake, just an honest, take it or leave it personality.  The same goes for  Michael Waltrip - the goofy idiot savant who owns the team that includes Bowyer, Truex Jr, and Vickers. 

We all know by now that the spin was most likely intentional, and that Vickers was told to pit under green, thus altering the outcome of the race to allow Truex Jr to make the chase.  NASCAR fans are fiercely loyal, and we spend a lot of money following the sport, so we are, understandably, less than pleased when we feel as if we have been duped.  Clint Bowyer duped us. He made us believe that he was the "everyman" driver, when in reality he is just a pawn for the big machine that racing has become.  Last year at a hospitality breakfast in Kansas, Bowyer was the driver who made an appearance and I remember thinking how refreshingly simple he was - he seemed like a guy you would want to be friends with, made my son laugh, and just seemed like a good person.  Unfortunately, when the time came for him to be honest and let things play out as they should, or take the cheap shot, he took the cheap shot.  He let us down.

The race evolved, not into an actual chase for the cup, but into a veritable racing version of helicopter parenting by the Michael Waltrip team:  Truex can't race in on his own?  We will make it happen by cheating so that he can get in.  After all, every kid needs a trophy, right?  Even if they didn't earn it?  Newman was winning, and that's not fair (or in the words of Bowyer, "that sucks").  We will fix it so that he doesn't win because our little kids need to be there, even if they didn't earn it.  Now Martin Truex is in the chase, not because he raced his way in, but because his team owner decided to play helicopter parent. 

So, NASCAR is "reviewing things".  Short of docking points, it really doesn't seem like there is much that they can do, since the race is over and they cannot go back and run those last 9 laps.  Bowyer will run with a target on his back, and rightfully so.  Truex, even if he wins the championship, will have to live with the fact that he did not earn the right to be there in the first place.  At the end of the day, I think Martin Truex is the loser, because he seems to be the only innocent party in any of this, yet criticism will fall his way due to the actions of the team.  As for Logano, who shouldn't be there either, well nobody cares because he has always presented himself as a snippy little idiot, so nobody is surprised when he acts like one.  But Bowyer?  You let us down.  We thought you were better than that, taking a cheap shot for the big machine.
That's why we are angry and disappointed.  Although, to those threatening to never watch a race again, I think we can all agree that we will be watching next week, if for nothing else than to see what happens when Ryan Newman gets any where near Bowyer.  And that, my friends, will be worth watching.  Let's let it play out on the track, since I think we can all agree that NASCAR has no way of actually making the situation right.

Feel free to flip to a different post now.  I don't know if any of my readers are NASCAR fans, and I briefly considered starting a new blog for my rants because they are usually way off topic from housewife things, but this is my blog and I don't really care if it is scattered in every direction.  That being said, I don't mind if you don't want to read about NASCAR.  It won't hurt my feelings, we all have different interests and that's just fine.

That being said, for those of you who do follow NASCAR, I am sure you are all too aware of the controversy surrounding the Saturday night race at Richmond and Clint Bowyer's  untimely (or timely for those who are Truex Jr. or Logano fans) spin.  The fans have spoken and the reaction is not good.  There is outrage and disappointment,  with some threatening to never watch again if Bowyer is not punished by anything less than having his head on a stick paraded through the infield during driver introductions. 
Had this been one of the ubiquitous Busch brothers or, for that matter Tony Stewart back in his evil driver hey day, there probably would not be as much as a backlash.  After all, you expect that kind of behavior from them.  But this was Clint Bowyer, the "Aw, Shucks", beer drinking everyman of the sport.  The kind of driver who always seemed to be exactly what he appeared to be: no pretense, not fake, just an honest, take it or leave it personality.  The same goes for  Michael Waltrip - the goofy idiot savant who owns the team that includes Bowyer, Truex Jr, and Vickers. 

We all know by now that the spin was most likely intentional, and that Vickers was told to pit under green, thus altering the outcome of the race to allow Truex Jr to make the chase.  NASCAR fans are fiercely loyal, and we spend a lot of money following the sport, so we are, understandably, less than pleased when we feel as if we have been duped.  Clint Bowyer duped us. He made us believe that he was the "everyman" driver, when in reality he is just a pawn for the big machine that racing has become.  Last year at a hospitality breakfast in Kansas, Bowyer was the driver who made an appearance and I remember thinking how refreshingly simple he was - he seemed like a guy you would want to be friends with, made my son laugh, and just seemed like a good person.  Unfortunately, when the time came for him to be honest and let things play out as they should, or take the cheap shot, he took the cheap shot.  He let us down.

The race evolved, not into an actual chase for the cup, but into a veritable racing version of helicopter parenting by the Michael Waltrip team:  Truex can't race in on his own?  We will make it happen by cheating so that he can get in.  After all, every kid needs a trophy, right?  Even if they didn't earn it?  Newman was winning, and that's not fair (or in the words of Bowyer, "that sucks").  We will fix it so that he doesn't win because our little kids need to be there, even if they didn't earn it.  Now Martin Truex is in the chase, not because he raced his way in, but because his team owner decided to play helicopter parent. 

So, NASCAR is "reviewing things".  Short of docking points, it really doesn't seem like there is much that they can do, since the race is over and they cannot go back and run those last 9 laps.  Bowyer will run with a target on his back, and rightfully so.  Truex, even if he wins the championship, will have to live with the fact that he did not earn the right to be there in the first place.  At the end of the day, I think Martin Truex is the loser, because he seems to be the only innocent party in any of this, yet criticism will fall his way due to the actions of the team.  As for Logano, who shouldn't be there either, well nobody cares because he has always presented himself as a snippy little idiot, so nobody is surprised when he acts like one.  But Bowyer?  You let us down.  We thought you were better than that, taking a cheap shot for the big machine.
That's why we are angry and disappointed.  Although, to those threatening to never watch a race again, I think we can all agree that we will be watching next week, if for nothing else than to see what happens when Ryan Newman gets any where near Bowyer.  And that, my friends, will be worth watching.  Let's let it play out on the track, since I think we can all agree that NASCAR has no way of actually making the situation right.