Things that make you go 'Phew!'

By DAVID GREEN

One race down, nine to go, and no end of mudslinging accusations and snide remarks. What a start to the third Chase to the Cup.

There's already much debate going on over the Bob Dillner "expose" of RCR's trick wheels on Turn 3 colleague Mike Harper's latest piece and in other forums. And then there's the litigation between fired RCR engine builder Anthony Corrente and the Childress team.

Finally, there's Jeff Gordon's angst because lame-duck teammate Brian Vickers won't go in the tank every time the 24 cars approaches to attempt an overtaking maneuver.

Maybe it's just the stomach flu I'm battling these days; then again, maybe some things in the racing world really are sickening.

As for the attacks on RCR, I'm afraid I don't have enough information to even form an opinion. I don't know what Anthony Corrente's beef is. The major point of contention seems to be over illegal modifications to a restrictor-plate engine, but the RCR team hasn't exactly been monopolizing top finishes in plate races recently.

The notion that RCR folks wanted to know "how engines were constructed at Joe Gibbs Racing" strikes me as a "well, duh" presumption. Presumably, Childress didn't hire Corrente because the Gibbs team's cars were underpowered, and he (Childress) wanted the same inferior powerplants in his cars.

Presumably, unless Corrente is bound by some sort of non-compete clause in his contract with Gibbs, he would have been willing to build the best engines he could build for his new employer, just like he did for his previous one. Seems like it would've done no harm to answer questions from his new employer and fellow employees about just how he intended to go about doing his job.

I'm waiting for lots of information regarding the wheels on those RCR cars. I still don't understand how we've established that any wrong was done, how it might have been done, or why it might have been done. I don't engineer or build championship-winning racecars, but then again neither does Bob Dillner, and until he can explain this to me in terms a fellow layman can understand, I'm not sure that he has a story.

The Observer's David Poole defends Dillner for protecting his sources, but this is an aspect of journalism that has cost the industry much of its credibility in recent decades. Too often, the public -- which, journalists are quick to affirm, have a "right to know" -- suddenly don't have any right to know exactly where the information is coming from. Therefore, their hands are tied in any attempt to evaluate the validity of the information. We're all simply left to choose whom we believe.

Easy enough to figure out how that's going to go. If you pull for RCR or its drivers, Dillner and Speed are the bad guys for lying about your favorites. If you've got something against RCR or think Kevin Harvick is a smart-aleck, then you accept at face value the vague report that Harvick's team may be cheating. The rest of us don't know what to think.

Then there's the "ugly teammate" issue. I have a well-established prejudice in this matter, but for those with short memories or first-time visitors to this blog, I'll repeat my position: Racing is not a team sport, at least not in the traditional American sense. It has been part and parcel of grand prix and road racing in Europe for years and it certainly has been more prevalent in NASCAR than many stock car racing fans would like to admit.

But it has never been considered acceptable, not until this era of mega-team racing. Somehow, nowadays everybody is supposed to be "a good teammate." And this brings us to Jeff Gordon whining about how Brian Vickers "raced him hard" for a top-three finishing position.

I've been very, very cool toward young Master Vickers ever since his cold-blooded dumping of Mike Bliss a couple of years ago at Charlotte in the race that used to be called the Winston Open, but I sure don't see anything wrong with Vickers trying to finish as high as he could in the Sylvania 300, never mind if it was Jeff Gordon trying to take the position away.

I think I'm gonna throw up again. And I don't think it's stomach flu.