RaceBud

My father spent most of my childhood trying to be sure that I (and my siblings) would do the right thing. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” was one of his more familiar quotes. The saying has been around for a long time and has stood the test of time in teaching ethical behavior.

NASCAR fans are currently wrangling over two “wrongs” – in this case, two rules that simply should no longer be on the books. That a team should use both these wrong rules together sure enough doesn’t make a “right.”

Two wrongs
The bad rules are:
• The top 35 in owners’ points qualifying rule
• The past champions provisional

Dad’s old adage quickly came to mind when I heard that Roger Penske, one of racing’s most distinguished characters, was considering handing a top 35 position to Sam Hornish, Jr. by using a combination of these rules.

For 2008, Penske will start a new team, the #77, and Mobil 1 will be the primary sponsor. Penske can guarantee the sponsor a place in the first five races by transferring owner points from his #2 team with driver Kurt Busch. If Hornish can race his way into the top 35 in points, he doesn’t have to worry about qualifying again.

And that’s not a problem for the #2 team, because Busch will be the most recent past champion outside the top 35. In the unlikely event he fails to qualify for a race, he uses the past champion’s provisional. It should be noted that Busch was a driver for Jack Roush, not Penske, when he earned the championship.

NASCAR has told Penske that the transfer of points is OK. Well, it’s their rule book and they (and their lawyers, who should be at the bottom of the ocean) can read it any way they want. But it’s unethical – and it’s not the way NASCAR should be doing business. It’s clearly not about racing – and fans might even assume it’s more about money.

Hornish is a popular IRL winner. He’s a nice fellow and will be an asset to the Cup community. He will win races and will most likely become a championship contender. And, he has a miserable qualifying record. He says he doesn’t qualify well, but that he races competitively. How is that different from a team that has slow pit stops? Should they be allowed to reclaim their place in line – that is, if they’re in the top-35?

Assigning owner points to a new driver is not a new thing. Any top-35 team that replaces one driver with another does it. But, Hornish isn’t replacing Busch, just using the points Busch earned. Earlier this year, DEI bought Ginn Racing and assigned the #14 points to Paul Menard, who was outside the top-35 at that time. That was unethical, too, but NASCAR allowed it.

While these, and other, examples are behind us, that doesn’t mean we have to continue looking forward to these guaranteed entries.

One of the more troubling planned points transfers that’s been proposed lately came from highly-respected Kyle Petty. Petty wants to transfer the owner points accumulated by Bobby Labonte’s #43 to his #45. That way, he’s in the top 35, therefore in the races. Not to worry, Petty says, because Labonte will get in the race with his past champions provisional, which was earned at the expense of Joe Gibbs Racing. Labonte can then re-earn his place in the top 35 while Petty re-loses his top 35 status. If anyone thinks he won’t fall out again, his record begs to differ.

Petty argues that he owes it to his sponsors and fans to get in the race any way he can. I respectfully disagree. He owes it to sponsors and fans to drive his capable car fast enough to qualify for the race. And, if he can’t qualify his car, he needs to load it up and go sit in the stands with his fans.

Of course, the Petty plan came before the Penske scheme began festering its way into public view. With Busch being the most recent past champion outside the top 35, Labonte would only get to use a provisional if Busch qualified by actually driving his car fast – as he is prone to do anyway.

The whole top-35 thing is wrong. And so is the past champion’s provisional. Whatever its reasoning for making them, NASCAR has done the competitors and fans an injustice with these rules. The time has come for the governing body of the best racing in the world to get rid of its two wrongs – and make it right.

Here’s a novel idea – how about the fastest 43 cars race and the rest go home? Then we could call it racing.

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