iNSIDE SCOOP: Deep Breath, Please!

Now that the unpleasantness that was Richmond-into-Chicago is behind us, can we get down to the business of determining who we’re going to crown as champion in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series?

Or is it behind us, really?

Methinks there’s going to be an echo of the events of the past two weeks all the way up to the end of the season and even unto Las Vegas.

Let’s recap: NASCAR was forced to boot a Chase driver who earned his spot because of team shenanigans affecting the outcome of the race at Richmond. Said driver, Martin Truex Jr., was not involved in any way except that he drove a car owned by Michael Waltrip Racing, and he raced his behind off with a broken wrist to do it.

NASCAR laid the wood to MWR after it was revealed that team officials played games with the finishing order to assure itself of a two-car Chase effort. Clint Bowyer spun, killing the chance for Ryan Newman to win the race and advance to the Chase. Bowyer and Vickers then pitted at odd times to make sure Truex made it in. NASCAR called BS, dropped a hammer on MWR and sat Truex out.

By penalizing the entire team after the Richmond race and before the Chase seedings kicked in, it meant that Newman was in and Truex wasn’t. 

Joey Logano, who was already in the Chase, made an ill-advised deal with Front Row Motorsports to gain an insurance spot, and while nobody was found guilty of anything, it forced NASCAR’s hand to put Jeff Gordon in the Chase. Rather, the appearance of impropriety led to a huge groundswell of Gordon fans claiming their man had been done dirt, and NASCAR was forced to bow to the pressure. 

Not really much they could have done, because SuperG did get hosed, but it sets precedent that will be conveniently forgotten—or legislated against--in the coming seasons, I would guess.

So now we have 13 drivers in the 12-driver Chase. In itself, that’s not a bad compromise. It’s not what NASCAR wanted, you may be sure, but at least they acted in the best way possible. Brian France stood up and put Gordon in the Chase, or at least blessed it, and that’s what his father and grandfather might have done given the same circumstances.

I’ll tell you one thing: if NASCAR ever finds itself in this position again, heads will roll and the garage area will be buttoned down tight. There’s only so much a benevolent dictatorship can handle at any one time, and this was a spit storm of epic proportions.

Can you imagine if there was an off-week between Richmond and Chicago, or worse yet, between Chicago and New Hampshire? There would be riots in the streets. 

The thing to consider is, what happens if Clint Bowyer gets hot and wins this thing? There will be an immediate asterisk beside his name, at least in the minds of a certain subset of NASCAR fans, and the fans of other drivers will not only open a bigger can of worms, they’ll demand that Bowyer eat them, one at a time, without condiments.

That’s just a guess, but a plausible one.

NASCAR has a fine line to hold in this, and they held. Was it a perfect solution? No, but it wasn’t an easy question in the first place. They protected what they had to protect, which is the integrity of the sport, and I would gather that further tomfoolery will result in draconian punishment.

Can’t really argue with that, can you? NASCAR succeeded in taking lemons and making lemonade, no matter how sour they were going down.