Speedweeks 2015 And What You Deserve In Life

Speedweeks 2015 races toward its finale as the NASCAR Sportsman Series - now the Xfinity Series - hits the Big D while the Winston Cup cars go for the 57th Daytona 500 Sunday.   The Truck Series went first Friday night, and it illustrated what has made this year a so-so Speedweeks at best.   The battle for the lead in the first half of the Nextera Truck 250 was by far the best racing of Speedweeks so far, a huge multilap battle headed by Tyler Reddick in a Brad Keselowski Ford and Ty Dillon in an RCR Chevrolet.

But then halfway hit and when a Truck appeared to run flat out of gas, a huge crash in Turn Three erupted; not only did it wipe out multiple Trucks, it took all life out of the race, as the second half was all Tyler Reddick all the time, specifically the final 33 laps.   That no one challenged Reddick illustrated yet again the absurdity of NASCAR's myopia against push-drafting - without it there simply isn't enough passing.

The racing is good, but it deserves to be a lot better (as it would in subsequent days).


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Not having drivers like Denny Hamlin and Danica Patrick can certainly help the sport become better.   The two were involved in a late set-to in the Qualifying 150s and as usual Patrick went all immature and stalked to Hamlin to remonstrate.  

This is one of those confrontations where neither party deserves anything positive.   Hamlin is a long-time bully on the racetrack and a stuck-up in the garage area, called out as such by ATHLON SPORTS a few years ago, while Danica Patrick remains the gutless soft-porn model who got where she is on her gender - identity entitlement at its worst - as well as with sexually suggestive photo spreads.  

The idea the sport would be better off with either of these two is foolishness.


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Hamlin and Patrick lead to the larger issue that they say you get what you deserve in life.   When a judge overseeing the dispute between Kurt Busch and his ex-girlfriend issued a restraining order against Busch, making a point that the evidence against Busch was sufficient to warrant the order plus order for him to undergo psychiatric evaluation, NASCAR, which had waited longer than most sports bodies on this issue, suspended Busch indefinitely.  

The suspension has, like the killing of Kevin Ward by Tony Stewart last August, brought out the worst in racing fans, who seem afraid of the idea that a major NASCAR star is objectively guilty of being OJ Simpson to be shunned by larger society.  The defenses of Busch, whose history of bullying and derangement is far too extensive to ignore - to where he was fired from Penske Racing after 2011 - are pathetic and refuse to confront the issue of what evidence is there that he didn't do what got him a restraining order.    There simply is no credibility to think a restraining order would come down without credibility on the part of the accusation.

The attempt by some fans to cite Travis Kvapil in contrast also fails as Kvapil in effect settled his assault accusation out of court.

The sport is not better off with Kurt Busch's participation, period.   You get what you deserve in life and Busch deserves to be shunned the way Tony Stewart deserves to be shunned.