NASCAR's Credibility Increasingly Questioned

Tony Stewart's open questioning of the integrity of NASCAR yellows for debris isn't exactly shocking. It is merely a public blast from within a sport increasingly distrustful of the integrity of the sanctioning body. NASCAR's credibility has come under more and more fire in this decade, for the very good reason that the sanctioning body's rule over the sport has produced less and less while saddling the sport's members and fans with more and more absurdity.

Suspicions about debris yellows isn't new, and it certainly is true that the Car Of Tomorrow has needed late yellows to get good finishes in the races in which it has run. The sanctioning body's credibility, though, goes beyond debris yellows. The recent developments in Kentucky Speedway's lawsuit against NASCAR highlight the credibility problems involved here. By publically questioning the relationship between NASCAR and Int'l Speedway Corporation, Kentucky Speedway makes a point about the absurdly arbitrary method by which race dates are awarded. That point was clear by the simple fact that Kentucky was built and is in a strong racing demographic, yet NASCAR ignored it for Winston Cup while pushing speedways and Winston Cup dates in markets that don't want racing.

There is also the reality that the varied rule changes made over recent years all have the common thread of the sanctioning body taking more and more control of the racing away from the track and into the officiating tower. Of course some of them get dressed up in safety garb, but it's all bunk; pit speed limits are not about safety, they're about presenting opportunities to bust some driver - giving officials an excuse to exercise authority. The Car Of Tomorrow isn't about safety or improved racing, it's about the sanctioning body dictating how racecars are built - notice how in the COT little mention is made of the safety improvements made to tracks, and in improving racing notice how low-cost bolt-on alternatives that actually do improve the racing are never considered - even though the most successful such bolt-on aero package raced at Daytona and Talladega 2000-1 in Winston Cup cars and presently races those tracks for BGN cars. Some areas of racecar engineering that are considered "cheating" probably aren't even about true competitive integrity; they're an excuse for officials to ride herd over race teams.

Big Bill France and Billy France wielded iron hands, but they had enough sense to know when to back off. Brian France so far hasn't shown any such sense. The sanctioning body's credibility is a legitimate issue as much as the credibility of CART was a serious issue in the 1980s and 1990s.

The question one should ask is this - what harm could come to the sport by the sanctioning body letting go some of the control over the racing it presently wields?