I came across a post today written by By David Whitley / The Orlando Sentinel that's posted under a Boston Herald web page that's titled:
If even Joe Gibbs' team is cheating, NASCAR is America's most crooked sport.
Nice. It starts out: John Edwards always wanted to be president. Well, I have the perfect job for him. President of NASCAR.
So I'm thinking, cool, an opinion piece. Maybe it will give me something new to think about!
I touches on the Joe Gibbs gas pedal shim issue though he fails to point out which series it occurred in. He follows it up with the statement: "I won't bore you with the technical ramifications, mainly because I don't understand them. But what it comes down to is Gibbs, the most respected, honest, God-fearing figure in NASCAR, looks like Edwards did when he was cornered by the National Enquirer after visiting his ex-mistress." Dude, how hard is to explain a stop shim?
Hmm, I didn't quite get the vibe, did you? The National Enquirer tends to make things up, NASCAR inspectors just find things.
He then goes on to say: "If Gibbs' team can't tell right from wrong, there is no hope for the rest of NASCAR. And there's even less reason for non-racing fans to think NASCAR isn't just a bunch of latter-day moonshiners.."
This is about where I started feeling like somewhere in this piece, someone just grabbed a headline, pulled on some legend, and slapped together a piece to start generating traffic. Or at least, that's how I'm feeling about now because if this is opinion, it's not from someone who knows NASCAR and with millions of sponsor dollars at stake, need to keep competitive and find the gray areas of the rule book to do so.
He does make a pretty fair argument that when someone is busted, the results stand and uses the analogy that if someone is caught cheating in the Olympics, they get the medal pulled. OK, that's fair and I've always pondered why NASCAR doesn't pull results. That would say more and have more impact than anything else they do these days.
He says that Gibbs has a spotless rep and would have hoped that his attitude would have rubbed off on his underlings. He finishes is post by saying:
"It seems there really are two Americas. One where people don't cheat because it's shameful. And one where the only shame is getting caught."
I liked one of the comments that said: "Whats this, NASCAR Bashing? Football has the most cheating going on, it's part of it's rich history. When there's that much money at stake don't kid yourself." I didn't leave a comment because it requires registration, and registration is required to [help us improve the quality of our comments by keeping them on subject and in accordance with their policies.] Whatever.
I'm on the fence. Am I upset. Not really, though the realm of NASCAR with it's storied legends that color a lot of people's perspectives doesn't need to be propagated. That's a long gone legend of tales while the sport and the teams involved continually try to move forward with their industry. This is no longer the era where a racer can pull his street car up onto the track and go for it. The man has made some interesting points while obviously coloring his writing with some emotional flare. I thought I'd put this out there for you to decide.
-Bruce
Article:
http://news.bostonherald.com
If even Joe Gibbs' team is cheating, NASCAR is America's most crooked sport.
Nice. It starts out: John Edwards always wanted to be president. Well, I have the perfect job for him. President of NASCAR.
So I'm thinking, cool, an opinion piece. Maybe it will give me something new to think about!
I touches on the Joe Gibbs gas pedal shim issue though he fails to point out which series it occurred in. He follows it up with the statement: "I won't bore you with the technical ramifications, mainly because I don't understand them. But what it comes down to is Gibbs, the most respected, honest, God-fearing figure in NASCAR, looks like Edwards did when he was cornered by the National Enquirer after visiting his ex-mistress." Dude, how hard is to explain a stop shim?
Hmm, I didn't quite get the vibe, did you? The National Enquirer tends to make things up, NASCAR inspectors just find things.
He then goes on to say: "If Gibbs' team can't tell right from wrong, there is no hope for the rest of NASCAR. And there's even less reason for non-racing fans to think NASCAR isn't just a bunch of latter-day moonshiners.."
This is about where I started feeling like somewhere in this piece, someone just grabbed a headline, pulled on some legend, and slapped together a piece to start generating traffic. Or at least, that's how I'm feeling about now because if this is opinion, it's not from someone who knows NASCAR and with millions of sponsor dollars at stake, need to keep competitive and find the gray areas of the rule book to do so.
He does make a pretty fair argument that when someone is busted, the results stand and uses the analogy that if someone is caught cheating in the Olympics, they get the medal pulled. OK, that's fair and I've always pondered why NASCAR doesn't pull results. That would say more and have more impact than anything else they do these days.
He says that Gibbs has a spotless rep and would have hoped that his attitude would have rubbed off on his underlings. He finishes is post by saying:
"It seems there really are two Americas. One where people don't cheat because it's shameful. And one where the only shame is getting caught."
I liked one of the comments that said: "Whats this, NASCAR Bashing? Football has the most cheating going on, it's part of it's rich history. When there's that much money at stake don't kid yourself." I didn't leave a comment because it requires registration, and registration is required to [help us improve the quality of our comments by keeping them on subject and in accordance with their policies.] Whatever.
I'm on the fence. Am I upset. Not really, though the realm of NASCAR with it's storied legends that color a lot of people's perspectives doesn't need to be propagated. That's a long gone legend of tales while the sport and the teams involved continually try to move forward with their industry. This is no longer the era where a racer can pull his street car up onto the track and go for it. The man has made some interesting points while obviously coloring his writing with some emotional flare. I thought I'd put this out there for you to decide.
-Bruce
Article:
http://news.bostonherald.com
I saw this asshats article when it first came out and wasn't surprised one bit.
ReplyDeleteWhat really pissed me off was there was no email or any other outward indication on how to send this nut a rebuttal.
In fact his byline claimed he was a staff writer but he wasn't listed anywhere on the papers staff listing.