Comedian George Carlin said
something many years ago about Seven Dirty Words; words you can't say on television. So I was thinking, I wonder if those
are the same seven words you can't use in NASCAR. There are probably more than seven words, but seven is a nice round number. There
are a little over 400,000 words in the English language, so if there are only seven you can't use in NASCAR, that's a pretty
good ratio... 399,993 to 7.
We all know what one of those
words is. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fined $10,000 and docked 25 points after winning the fall race in Talladega
in 2004. In victory lane when asked to describe the victory, Junior responded, "It don't mean sh!t right now. Daddy's
won here 10 times."
Then you had the interview
with Tony Stewart immediately after the win at the Brickyard this year. Maybe it was an underhanded dig at ESPN during
their first return to NASCAR since 2000, or maybe it was just the excitement of the moment. In dedicating the win to
his legion of fans, Stewart said, "This one's for every one of those fans in the stands who pull for me every week and take
all the sh!t from everybody else." Same word, just bigger fine, it must be the inflation since 2004.
That brings us to last week's
race which became the Finger Lake Region's version of the Thriller from Manila. With eighteen laps remaining at Watkins Glen, Juan Pablo Montoya
(JPM) was hit from behind by Martin Truex Jr. and shoved into Kevin Harvick effectively taking out both cars. A pushing
match ensued between Harvick and Montoya until NASCAR referees (officials) pulled them apart. Harvick's corner man (Jeff
Burton) whisked Harvick away before the fight could really get going. It really wasn't much of a fight, but it was fun
to watch. I like Stewart's comments after the race, when asked about the pushing match between the two. Stewart
said, "I didn't see it, but they still had their Hans (device) and their helmets on, so I wasn't impressed."
In the follow-up interview
when asked what he said to Montoya, Harvick said, "I was talking about kicking his @$$."
I remember thinking, I wonder
what the NASCAR fine will be for using @$$ on TV. I watched the news reports on Fine Day (Tuesday after the race), anticipating
a similar fine to Stewart and Earnhardt for what NASCAR calls, "Inappropriate Comments." Fine day came and went without
a fine, so I assume it is okay to use the word @$$ in NASCAR, unless you are referring to one of the NASCAR officials of course. It's
ok if drivers use it talking about each other. It's interesting that a remark that promotes violence goes unchecked by
NASCAR. I'm not judgin', I'm just sayin'.
This whole idea of making up
the rules and penalties must stop. Can you see a committee of Super Bowl referees standing at mid-field trying to figure
out what the penalty for holding should be based on the circumstance and who was playing? Say it ain't so! I just
don't see it being a big deal to standardize penalties that are fair and equitable across the board for all rule violations.
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If you do X then you pay Y. Seems
like a pretty simple formula for everybody to understand.
I also like Tony Stewart's
take on the issue, on his first radio show on the Sirius network. He said, "That's something with NASCAR that I've never
understood. I don't know if it's the frequency of penalties and the fines that go along with it, or to me it should be if
you punch a driver it cost you this much, if you flip somebody the bird and it's caught on TV it's this much. If you say a
bad word it's this much. Let us know what it is because the risk might be worth the reward, I don't know. I might be willing
to pay $25,000 to knock somebody out."
The concept of risk vs. reward
makes sense to me. Let the drivers and crews know exactly what they face when they are making decisions that affect the
racing season. If Harvick had known an all out pit clearing brawl with JPM was, let's say, $50,000, he might have been
willing to write that check (I know a couple of Harvick fans that might be willing to write it for him.)
Oh, and by the way....
I still want to know what the other six words are. Have any ideas?
