You could hear the music on the AM radio…
(If you have to put this much effort into “saving” commercial radio, is it really worth saving?)
I’m not a huge NASCAR fan: if I’m home and a race is televised, I’ll put it on as background noise, and I’d happily go to a race if someone invited me. But my life doesn’t revolve around it. With that said, this is interesting:
Ryan Newman replaced Martin Truex Jr. in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship on Monday night when NASCAR penalized Michael Waltrip Racing for manipulating the outcome of last weekend’s race.
Michael Waltrip Racing was fined $300,000, and general manager Ty Norris received an indefinite suspension. Truex, Bowyer and Vickers were docked 50 points apiece — but Bowyer’s deduction does not affect his position in the Chase, which begins Sunday at Chicago.
Isn’t “manipulating the outcome” of a race pretty much what every racing team tries to do? Is this example just particularly egregious? (And I find it surprising that there’s been no FARK thread on this yet.)
(Edited to add: Thanks to Ben for his thoughtful and enlightening comments, which you should really go read now. Also, FARK did put up a thread after I posted this.)
The penalty comes due to the confusion of NASCAR as a team or individual sport. NASCAR standings (points) are ranked per individual driver and car (owner). However most NASCAR owners field more than one car. NASCAR tradiationally has not had “team orders” like F1 for example. Team orders certainly happen in NASCAR, but most teams are smart enough to shroud them with plausible deniablity. The team orders happen in the middle of a race. The understanding in NASCAR is that all team orders are null and void, and all drivers compete for the win at the end of the race, even against teammates. The team orders of MWR last weekend were blatant and obvious and had to be addressed.
Personally, I am against the artificial “Chase” format for NASCAR. Team orders would be much less of a problem if NASCAR went back to each racing counting equally throughout the season. Americans who watch NBA, NFL, NHL, and now MLB with all sorts of wild cards and .500 teams making championship playoffs apparently need that format in all sports.
Just to add, MWR had 3 cars in the race. Two of those cars took a dive in the last few laps of the race. One of them spun without any apparent reason just after an unusual series of radio transmissions with the driver. The other car was called in to make an unscheduled pit stop; the driver argued for a few replies until he understood the call was a vague team order. Both of those events led to the third car finishing high enough to make the Chase. The spinning car was already in the chase and remains in it after the penalty.
One more because I love me some NASCAR. MWR racing in the first race of their inaugaral season messed with their fuel before qualifying (supposedly added “jet fuel”) NASCAR has always been “If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying”. NASCAR will give penalties when teams are caught manipulating suspension or aerodynamics or other incremental things. It has always been understood by the teams that cat and mouse between the rules and the cars is accepted, but the teams are never to mess with the fuel or have too big of an engine. MWR did that first race of their first season.