Checkered Past

Sorry, Miss Washington, no disrespect intended, but ..

With all due apologies to Miss Washington state: No, NASCAR probably won't ever hold its season-ending awards-fest at your place, even if sister company International Speedway Corp. builds that new track in the backyard.

But you had probably already figured out you weren't ISC and NASCAR's favorite, hadn't you? You suspected something was amiss when your suitors asked you to help cover so much of the cost of a date. Even in these enlightened times, you had to ask yourself, how far should a girl go? Financially speaking, of course.

You're being asked to put up nearly $170 million of the $345 million ISC says it will take to build a NASCAR speedway in  Kitsap County. And, all the while, ISC is telling New York it will spend $600 million or so for a track on Staten Island. And ISC and NASCAR will pay for everything.

Yep, NYC can hang onto her purse. Heck, ISC  and NASCAR will probably hold all the doors open for her, too.

Sure, you kind of knew she was the Big Apple of ISC and NASCAR's eye. They've been pursuing New York - fervently - for years. But, hey, Miss Washington, you can't let such unpleasantries distract you. There are others - some perhaps more willing - on the dance card besides you and New York.

There's the group in Iowa that Rusty Wallace in working with on a new speedway. And Canadian investors are reportedly close to a deal to build a new track. That one is being designed by the Charlotte, N.C.,  architect who already has his name on Texas Motor Speedway.

So, Miss Washington, it would appear you have some decisions to make.

You have to consider how important it is for you to go to the dance with someone whose popularity is growing by such leaps and bounds every season. Not just to go, but to be seen, for everyone to know you're there.

And, deep down, you have to understand that ISC and NASCAR want to be there with you, too. Where you are is where ISC and NASCAR want to be. Very badly.

As long as you can work out all the financing.

Fans need their own 'official' rule book

I think an official rule book for NASCAR fans is a good idea. In fact, there might already be one. But it could be like NASCAR's in that no one's ever actually seen it.

Which certainly solves the problem of who has to be in charge of keeping up with it. Like NASCAR's own, the fans' rule book could be updated - even rewritten - on short notice, too.

And, sort of like theirs, ours could have section spelling out "actions detrimental to stock car racing (fans)."

Under the fans' rules, I believe NASCAR's Jim Hunter should hereby be fined $10,000 and docked 25 points for inappropriate word choice. His owner - whichever member of the France family that happens to be this month - should lose some points, too.

Hunter's utterance of the word "tradition" in his berating of drivers who snubbed NASCAR's recent New York awards bash was surely so over the top as to be construed as an action detrimental to stock car racing fans.

"It was very disappointing to NASCAR and the entire industry that drivers did not show up for various awards," spokesman Jim Hunter said Tuesday. "It shows a lack of respect for the history and tradition of the sport."

I'm pretty sure our rule book would have a provision speficially prohibiting use of the word tradition by anyone currently in the employ of NASCAR. It's NASCAR's owners and officials, after all, who are turning their backs on so much of stock car racing's tradition, not the drivers.

Tradition is, of course, a fine word when used in the proper context. A sentence that also includes such words as "Darlington," "Rockingham" and "Nashville," among others, for instance.

When the green first waved on Labor Day weekend at Darlington more than a half-centrury ago, it began a tradition that was all about the racing. When NASCAR started holding its season-ending awards ceremonies in New York a quarter-century ago, it was about the marketing.

But, hey, that's NASCAR, a company that today may have no equal in sports marketing. I get the impression marketing has, over time, become the primary focus in those big offices down in Daytona Beach, Fla. And that means the racing can finish no better than in second place.

There danged sure ought to be a rule against that.