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As I heard Pastor Joe Nelms’ invocation on Saturday night, I, like everyone, chuckled at the absolute absurdity of the thing. I wasn’t sure if I was watching a prayer, or a scene from Talladega Nights. As the night wore on and one day has turned into two, the more I’ve thought about it, the more embarrassed I’ve become.

From local television sportscasters to national news outlets, this story has become much larger than it needed to be. Unfortunately, while I’m sure most people have their opinions of NASCAR and racing, this may very well have been the first exposure for some. Not a flattering portrait.

In his defense, Pastor Nelms told Sirius Radio’s Tradin’ Paint Monday that the purpose of the prayer was to do something out of the ordinary.

I want to get somebody’s attention, so that’s been our desire every time we’ve been up there, to try to make an impact on the fans and give them something they’ll remember and maybe they’ll go home on a Friday night or a Saturday night and say, “Maybe I ought to get up and go to church in the morning.’’

While I can understand the point, by trying to reach people Pastor Nelms fed into every negative, ignorant stereotype that has ever surrounded motorsports – and I don’t think he did any favors to his cause.

Former Motor Racing Outreach chaplain Dale Beaver took to his church’s blog to address the issue.

As a race-car driver considers his approach to every turn, we must surely consider our approach to God before we pray. God’s desire is that we come to him, but we must conclude that as we do so, even as coming to our father, we address him with great confidence and unique respect. In every culture (even the racing sub-culture) there is a line between relevance and farce which, in prayer, just does not fit.

No matter your personal religious convictions, whether you believe in God or not, I think what Pastor Beaver said makes a lot of sense. While challenging convention and being controversial is not necessarily a bad thing, this was probably not the way to do it.

The fact is, people weren’t talking about this and replaying the clip of it out of some great admiration or respect for what was said. They weren’t inspired by it and I doubt there was much consideration of church attendance. People were watching this because they wanted to make fun of it and that’s not good for anything.

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Two incidents, two very similar stories. Two drivers enter a turn, two wide. The one on the bottom slips up and wrecks the one on top. The one who was wrecked has his car repaired and returns to track. He goes out and wrecks the one who wrecked him. One incident ends with a car on its top, the other ends with a car in flames.

Less than two months into the season and driver payback is quickly becoming the story of the year. This weekend at Nashville, we got our second taste of on-track payback in an incident between Jason Leffler and James Buescher.

These incidents have got you guys talking. Following the race a reader sent us a question. He asked:

“Do you think the time will come when some of the drivers get the message that “It was just a racing incident” won’t work and if you get loose it is your fault?”

Is that a message that needs to be sent?

The fact is the impetus for the payback on both occasions occurred because of accidental contact. No one means for these things to happen, and more often than not drivers are more than willing to take responsibility. Unfortunately we seem to be coming to a point where this type of incident is grounds for payback.

In the case of Carl Edwards I’ll give him a bit more credit because of the history between he and Brad K. That said, the contact in that case and the most recent one is not excusable.

I don’t think payback is deserved or OK when the contact occurs accidentally (I think it should be used sparingly in any case). These things happen during the course of a race; there are 43 cars moving at high speeds on a tightly packed racetrack. It happens. Jason Leffler’s and Carl Edwards’ careers are not free of contact that was unintended. I can’t recall their cars being destroyed by an angry competitor though.

At the end of the day all of these guys are adults and they need to start acting like it. It sucks to get wrecked. It sucks when you’re the victim of an inexperienced or over-eager fellow competitor’s mistake. But as I’ve already said, this is racing, it happens. The sooner these guys grow-up the safer everyone will be.

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