| Subject: this week's backstretch |
Author:
Rick
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Date Posted: Saturday, September 29, 07:19:55pm
I gotta cut about 40 words out but I think this is the basic column unless someone has a suggestion or two.
Sometimes you just need to stand up for yourself. We’ve all done it at one time or another so how can anyone be surprised when the otherwise mild-mannered Kyle Petty does the same thing?
Last week at Dover, Petty was a lap or two down and he was giving the leaders plenty of room to pass. He’d already moved out of the way for the first four cars in line and in his mirror he could see the fifth and sixth place cars of Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer coming up behind him. Everyone knows what happened next.
There are two schools of thought on the results of that little stunt. First, the younger fans think the old man needs to get out of the way and let the real winners race. I say ‘younger’ because most of the people I’ve seen take this approach are in their thirties or younger or has only become a NASCAR fan during the last ten years or so. There are exceptions but that’s pretty accurate. The old guys (and gals) who have been around the sport for a while invariably side with the old man. There are some young people who have jumped on the Kyle Petty bandwagon in this one however. But very few old timers seem to have sided with Hamlin.
Here’s the way it all played down: Hamlin came up behind Petty who admittedly was running a second or so off the pace. With Bowyer on his bumper, Hamlin decided not to wait for Petty to give way and he put the bumper to the 45 car. Whether he intended to put Petty into the wall, or just get him loose is irrelevant. What matters is that through sheer lack of patience and total disregard for anyone but himself, Hamlin took Petty out of the race, damaged Bowyer’s car and in the end could very well have sealed his own fate in the hunt for a championship. To make matters worse, in an interview afterwards, Hamlin said, “Petty needs to just get out of the way.”
More than anything else I think, it was that statement that caused even Petty-haters to jump to his defense. You see, there was a race going on. There is absolutely nothing in the rules that says anyone has to get out of the way for anyone else. But there most certainly is something in the rule book that says you cannot intentionally wreck someone.
The problem is not Denny Hamlin and Kyle Petty. The problem is twofold. First and foremost is the way the cars are built. Between May of 2000 and February, 2001, Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper and Dale Earnhardt all died of pretty much the same injury: basilar skull fracture. In February or 2001 NASCAR began to take safety seriously. Maybe too seriously. The cars are incredibly safe now. Ricky Rudd’s broken shoulder is the most serious injury we’ve seen in a long time. The cars are so safe now that drivers forget that people have died in them. It is so easy to wreck someone now because the chances of hurting them are so slight as to be not worth considering. That’s a problem.
The second problem is respect. Some of these guys just don’t have the respect they need for the other drivers. There are 43 cars on the race track and while 12 are going for the championship there are 31 other agendas out there. The middle pack are pretty safe and they are racing for money and maybe an occasional win. But the bottom third are racing to stay in the top 35. Guys like Petty, Marlin, Nemechek and others need to stay in the top 35 or there is a real possibility that they might not be racing at all next year.
Everyone that qualifies for a race deserves to be in it and they most certainly do not deserve to be wrecked just because they don’t fit into the plans of someone else.
That wasn’t just Kyle Petty getting in the face of Denny Hamlin. It was every one of the old guys who still deserve some respect on the race track. Kyle wasn’t saying “Don’t ever wreck me again.” Petty simply said, “You show a little respect out there or someone is gonna come see you about it.”
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