NASCAR, Stop Playing Favorites

The recent controversy over Tony Stewart's questions about the integrity of NASCAR's yellows has garnered continuing examination, but amid this recent examination, missed is what may be the real point of at least some of this controversy.

At at Alabama 500 we saw some more questionable timing of a late yellow as well as continued proof of the absurdity of freezing the field. When David Reutimann blew up in the trioval, the yellow did not fly until after Jeff Gordon had retaken the lead, even though Reutimann had erupted halfway through the trioval, well before Gordon and the other leaders had even reached the stripe. This of course was followed by a green-white-checker finish that got aborted as soon as the field hit the backstretch after Johnny Sauter punched the second-turn wall. What followed was graphic evidence that a key argument against racing to the yellow - to prevent crashes - is nothing but safety-overkilling hot air, as Tony Stewart got blasted into the inside wall even with the yellow flying.

This controversy is but a small part of larger continuing controversies over how NASCAR officiates races. Amid the controversies lies what should be a key point of criticism - the fact that far too often officiating calls go to the "favorites."

It isn't a new controversy; it has been ongoing. I remember John Andretti pitting too early under a yellow at New Hampshire in 2001 but beating the pace car to the pit exit stripe, yet NASCAR ruled he was put a lap down. When does a penalty like that ever hit a "favorite" like Jeff Gordon or Dale Junior? Talladega's yellow-line rule only seems to apply to "field fillers" like Mike Skinner, who got flagged in 2001 in Bobby Hamilton's win, but let Dale Junior pass on the apron entering Three and NASCAR contrives a lame excuse that he'd "completed the pass" when he went below the line, never mind that the rule means clearing a car by going below the line and Earnhardt was nowhere close to such before he went below the line.

These are but two of a myriad number of examples observors can find that show that NASCAR officiating too often benefits the big drivers and teams.

The point of controversy like this is that most people want NASCAR to stop playing favorites. There have to be situations where the big names like Gordon and Junior and Jimmie Johnson are the ones who get penalized and the "smaller" names who wind up the beneficiary. We see the opposite too often. People will regain a lot of confidence in the sanctioning body when they can see that the superstars get hit in the gut with penalties, too.