CONCORD, NC :: We have all seen what happened at Charlotte Saturday night in the Cup race. Brad Keselowski pissed off a pretty good amount of people. And those people showed their displeasure. To me, this is what racing is about, raw emotion, the heat of the moment, the peak of competition. But the powers that be think otherwise these days, fines, probation and doing whatever to please the media and the watered-down masses is what seems to be hip to them. I only hope this stays where it is, local racing would be ruined if “the powers that be” started doing the same on the weekly level. Knowing the “PC” world we live in now, it’s sadly only a matter of time.

I understand some of the thinking from the Cup officials. Yeah we can’t have people hitting each other on pit road. But at the same time, where all this happened, if anyone was standing on pit road that could have been hurt then they deserved to get hit. There wasn’t, it was all because a few bumps, and poor ole Tony Stewart stood for himself, something that me or any other man with an ounce of testicular fortitude would do, and he gets punished. But Matt Kenseth jumps on a guy and gets nothing. It would have made more sense if the Marcos Ambrose/Casey Mears situation was handled different earlier this year when they actually traded licks, but those guys were fined and no one was getting hurt, but themselves. I know sponsors are watching, other sports are watching, and they are worried about that. But if you want your own brand of an exciting sport, let it be your sport, otherwise make the drivers pass some kind of ball back and forth as they drive around and have referees in faster cars watching. The consistency is comical to say the least.

But that is big time racing, and Brian France killed that many years ago trying to “fabricate” excitement. It obviously is total crap as the stands are empty now, people would rather watch bowling and the “racing” is anything but. This is what it is, but 80% of the people reading this could care less about it, as they are die-hard fans of weekly racing. Racing the way it should be, racing the way it was, and racing that is on edge. But will it last? It’s hard to say.

Week after week, I go to tracks and see more emotion and blood sweat and tears than you will ever see on Sundays. These guys work hard all week, spend their own money and when it’s race time, they are serious. Every week at tracks across America there are fights, and there are crashes that come from retaliation. This is part of life, it’s part of the competitiveness of the human nature inside of us. Tracks usually keep it handled very well, but with the recent media slandering of the whole Tony Stewart and Kevin Ward tragedy, they will soon be wanting to sink their teeth in deeper. Just take the garbage that was on Good Morning America this week, not paying attention to the fight at Charlotte, or anything about it, only about Tony Stewart backing into a car… that deserved it. Sadly it was reported on by people who couldn’t even remotely tell you three facts about racing, it was all propaganda and journalism at its worst. And that is what I’m worried about, not so much the media, but NASCAR overreacting to save their own butts that may not even be on the line just because they are scared of it.

I’ve been a fan of racing for over 30 years now. I’ve seen a lot, a lot of great things and things at their very worse, and some things I can never speak on. But all of it is for a reason. At the end of the day, on the local level, we are all a racing family. Now some drivers won’t be eating dinner with each other, but deep down inside, every one of them respects the other because they know they worked hard to be there with them and gave them all they had. Scrapes and bruises will come, and that too is part of life, any man (or woman) over 18 that have never been in a fight should probably find a new sport, because this is a tough business, everyone holds their own or at least tries to. It polices itself, at the end of the day it always works out and we go on.

I personally think tracks should not have law enforcement in the pits. If they do they should be plain clothes and I’ll tell you why. I regularly go to Ace Speedway, one of the toughest tracks around. Beating and banging is normal there, and with that comes rivalries, with rivalries comes confrontations. At other tracks I see so many people wanting to be Superman just because the cops are there, they “know” if something happens it won’t last long to begin with. But at Ace, you better think about it, because if your serious and cross that line, you better be prepared to knuckle up. And it rarely happens there because of this in my eyes, not because anyone there is scared, but just because it makes you think. That and the “family” thing, it all comes back to that.

Rivalries are what make our sport what it is. And it is exactly what has killed racing in the top series’ because it’s virtually not allowed. We will continue to rub fenders and occasionally rub heads, it happens to us all, it’s happened to me and will probably happen again, and I don’t even drive. But that’s who we are, we are the only sport that prays before each event, sings our National anthem and honors America like no other. We say “ma’am” and thank you often, and throw a hand up when we see people we hardly even know. We help other teams before the races and will help them load their cars up afterwards. But when the green drops, it’s business, and what’s not good for business to an individual will be handled, the best way we know how. That’s just a fact of life. It just pisses me off to see the top of the ladder in such disarray, so watered down, so sculptured. We can only hope it doesn’t trickle down, if it does weekly racing as we know it will never be the same.