Turn 3

What will the Shootout bring?

By DAVID GREEN

Anybody think the Budweiser Shootout tonight might be a little action-packed?

If not, things will take a distinct turn from the pattern established in practice so far, with the rollbacks and clean-up crews staying busy -- not the mention the mechanics who have to repair wrecked cars, or get back-ups prepped for their understudy roles.

At this point, it would be safe to guess there won't be any multicar crashes in qualifying this afternoon. But I'm not betting even on that.

Tonight's non-points special will be an unrestricted (pun intended) test of the new policy of allowing drivers to police themselves in bump-drafting. Then, there will be NASCAR's reaction to how the drivers fare in the exhibition race.

It is entirely possible that the self-policing policy will be modified, or even rescinded entirely, before the 500. I'm not predicting that, merely suggesting that it is possible.

Then again, tonight's race be turn out to be the next to take its lumps for being boring.

Either way, I suspect we'll be talking about it tomorrow.

What the hull!

By DAVID GREEN

In case you haven't heard, there's a big controversy in the America's Cup yacht race -- based on technology. Auto racing fans should be able to relate to this one.

It's all about hulls. You know, the body and chassis, as it were, of the boats. One might refer to the debate as a "hull-abaloo."

OK, OK. Enough groans, booing and hissing. This year's race will be the first ever between two multihull boats. As a National Public Radio announcer described it, "Think of a catamaran on steroids."

Switzerland's Alinghi is, in fact, a twin-hull boat, or catamaran. The American challenger is a trimaran. (It a name -- BMW Oracle -- based on corporate sponsorship, another element NASCAR fans should find familiar.)

Traditionalists are having conniptions. The multihull boats mean there will be no dramatic images of sailors hanging perilously over one side or the other to attempt to maintain balance. Mechanical powered winches mean crews won't be wrestling with might and main to make captains' adjustments in sails.

It reminds me of the arguments in auto racing that have been caused by technological development, and the purpose of the sporting events.

Arguments against the innovations that will be on display in the Mediterranean Sea off Valencia, Spain, when the Cup begins tomorrow seem logical to me. What little I knew about the race before I began researching it this morning was pretty much based on those images that I referred to earlier. The essence of the competition will obviously be altered.

The question is whether that's a good or a bad thing. Like radical aerodynamics, restrictor plates and other aspects of NASCAR racing, it's an eye-of-the-beholder thing.

Just in case you want to know more about the America's Cup, read on. If you're not interested, thanks for getting this far. I look forward to any comments about technology and auto racing.

The America's Cup race has a long tradition, dating from 1851 when the New York Yacht Club accepted a challenge from a British group and prevailed over 14 English challengers in a race around the Isle of Wight. The oval-track race fan in me wonders if the boats ran an American-style counter-clockwise (or anti-clockwise, as the Brits say) course.

The trophy was officially named the America's Cup in 1857, in recognition of the inaugural winner of it. The first official challenge for possession of the Cup came in 1870, when the Royal Thames Yacht Club's Cambria fell to Magic, the best of 18 American entries.

Since then, the race has been staged 30 more times, usually -- like this year's race -- as a two-team contest between the holder of the Cup and a challenger. The champion gets to set the rules for the next contest. Imagine Hendrick, Roush, et al, with such an opportunity! Conspiracy theorists say that's already the case in NASCAR. But, I digress...

The Swiss boat is the two-time reigning champion and America is attempting to regain ownership of the Cup, which it has held an overwhelming majority of the time since the race's inception. Australia (1983) was the first to defeat the Americans, and lost the Cup in the next challenge four years later.

In 1995, New Zealand won the Cup and then, in 2000, became the only country other than the U.S. to successful defend its title.

The Swiss were the first European winners in 2003, and defended their championship in 2007. As the U.S. endeavors to reclaim the Cup, Alinghi and crew will try to become the first team other than America to win it for a third straight time.

Playing dirty

By DAVID GREEN

Get ready for two weeks of Super Bowls -- the National Football League's version of it this week, and the NASCAR race often compared to it the week following.

Just how the two events stack up against each other is strictly a matter of individual tastes. In this writer's humble opinion, the Great American Race has not yet reached the mainstream iconic status of the football game, and may never do so.

But that's not the subject at hand. Rather, let's discuss an aspect of the game that is comparable to the race with regard to competition and the actual conduct of the contest.

Specifically, let's talk about dirty play.

New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams raised some eyebrows last week by chuckling about how his team had been able to render quarterbacks Brett Favre of the Minnesota Vikings and, the week before, Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals ineffective by knocking them senseless -- and by annoucing they intend to do the same thing to the Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning this Sunday.

Colts players, publicly, are downplaying the "threat." Left guard Ryan Lilja told the Associated Press, "The teams in our division go out and draft guys for that reason. You hear rumors about bounties and that kind of stuff, so it's nothing new."

Now, my football bona fides are lacking. I attended a high school (Heath, in West Paducah, Ky.) that, like many small schools in the commonwealth, did not have a football program until 1969, when I was a senior. Many small schools in Kentucky still don't have football. In consolidation-crazy Kentucky, small high schools are an endangered species, but that's an argument for a different forum and another day.

I'm not entirely sans knowledge of the game, however, nor of sports in general. I know all about "goon squads" and "hatchet men" and that sort of thing.

But I'm offended by the blatant acknowledgement of cheap-shot brutality as a part of someone's game plan.

To tie this discussion to racing, I'm offended by the notion that it's perfectly acceptable, if you can't beat someone, to beat them up.

Auto racing -- not so much in the high-dollar professional ranks these days, but historically -- has been a sport where the best drivers want to beat the best. The stories about race teams helping each other with parts, labor, even financial assistance are not myths. I know first-hand about guys working like crazy to help each other before the race, and then racing each other like crazy once the green flag drops.

Sometimes you race each other so hard that one or both of you winds up wrecked. But it has never been generally accepted that deliberately wrecking somebody is acceptable. There's no honor in winning because you wrecked everybody else. That's the essence of the negative side of the legendary Dale Earnhardt and the source of much rejection of Formula One's Michael Schumacher.

But even Earnhardt and Schumacher never bragged about the dirty deeds they were accused of doing, no matter how plain it may have seemed that they were guilty.

I have no problem with the Saints doing their best to get to Manning this Sunday. I have no problem with legitimate hits on the former Tennessee quarterback considered by many to be the best ever. I don't even have any problem with mind games driven by on-the-field trash talk, as long as the hits are clean.

But I hope purposeful, malicious strategies don't ever become widely accepted in any realm other than national defense.