To anyone not sitting in the #00 pit, what initially transpired between Kyle Busch and David Reutimann was nothing more then a racin’ deal. Reutimann slipped up in the center of the corner, and Busch couldn’t check up fast enough. It was an accident, pure and simple. What followed was a classic overreaction. (In case you missed it, view the whole incident here.)
After getting his car back in racing shape, Reutimann went back on the track and waited for his chance. He would get it on lap 156. The two drivers were side by side out of turn two, and Reutimann took his shot down the backstretch. The #00 would again end up spun around, while Busch’s car sustained serious damage to the rear end and rear suspension. Reutimann would end up 35th, eleven laps down, while Busch soldiered home 21st.
You may agree or disagree with me, but I believe Reutimann overreacted terribly. I understand he and his team were upset by having their day ruined by the #18, but the contact was in no way intentional. So instead of trying to salvage a decent day for his team, Reutimann decided to kill Busch’s day as well.
What I think is interesting to note here is Reutimann’s deficit to 13th in the points. After Dover, Reutimann was only 173 points behind Ryan Newman for 13th (remember there is a big bonus for being the highest finishing non-Chase driver). A few good runs along with some trouble for the 39, and Reutimann could have been right there. Now, following the dustup at Kansas, Reutimann is 253 points out, and has basically eliminted himself from that bonus money. I hope the payback was worth the million dollars that he may have thrown away in the process.
I can understand wanting to get payback if an incident was intentional, or appeared intentional. This was neither. And obviously Busch has a reputation for these sorts of incidents, so I can see that side of the argument. Reutimann was trying to show that he is a driver that is not to be messed with (especially by Kyle), but in this case, his actions were not warranted. If he ended up choosing to not get payback, no driver would have thought less of him. In the end, all he really accomplished was making himself look like an ass.
Besides the unneeded retaliation, I also wanted to throw in my two cents about non-Chasers racing Chasers. I’ve written this before, but those outside have absolutely no obligation to treat the Chasers with kid gloves. If you are on the track, you are fair game. And you are especially fair game if you intentionally wreck somebody. The Chasers should not be given a free pass to rough up whoever they please just because another driver isn’t in the Chase. This isn’t necessarily what happened on Sunday between Reutimann and Busch, but I wanted to make the point anyway.
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After a couple of days of what I’m sure was intense hand wringing and some serious questions, NASCAR announced Wednesday the punishment for Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski after their last lap melee at Gateway. As I’m sure most of you saw, NASCAR docked Edwards 60 driver points and fined him $25,000 and docked Jack Roush 60 owner points. Both Edwards and Keselowski were placed on probation until the end of the year.
After the announcement Twitter was a buzz with speculation about what this would mean for NASCAR’s ‘boys, have at it’ policy. Many decried this as inconsistency, others said it would have a chilling effect, and still some applauded it.
Wherever you stand on the penalty, I thought the insistence by some that this would kill the new, more open policy was interesting – especially after the intense discussion on the matter leading up to NASCAR’s Wednesday afternoon announcement.
I personally tend to think this penalty won’t have a great affect on the current atmosphere. Certainly I think Carl’s penalty will make guys think twice about paying somebody back on track, but in the heat of the moment I believe we’re still going to see retribution.
Perhaps if this had been the first penalty issued after NASCAR instituted the policy it would have not changed the way things operated. Guys would have seen that NASCAR wasn’t serious about the change. Consider though what NASCAR has allowed drivers to do this season.
Denny Hamlin was wrecked under caution after Clint Bowyer returned to the track – Bowyer got probation. Carl Edwards returned to the track after getting repaired at Atlanta and wrecked Brad Keselowski – Keselowski ended up on his top in the fence and Edwards got parked and put on probation.
Drivers have seen what NASCAR has allowed others to get away with. The key lesson to all of this is, if you have spoken with John Darby, Mike Helton or both already regarding an incident with a fellow competitor and they’ve told you to cool it, you better cool it. If something blatant goes down on track you’re probably going to have a harsher penalty as a result.
Still NASCAR knows what a success this policy has been, and how good the racing has been this season. The last thing they want to do is murder the thing that has helped them get to this point – and I think most drivers know that.
Some More Penalty Thoughts
I think it’s important to remember Carl is a repeat offender – and these two have a long history. Was this weekend’s wreck any more or less blatant than anything anyone else has done this season? I don’t really think so. I do think though at some point NASCAR was going to have to draw a line and say “enough is enough.” This just happened to be the point.
Was it inconsistent? Maybe in the sense that they’ve chosen not to punish offenders quite so harshly this season (Carl among those). It’s unfair to compare this to previous seasons though as NASCAR was operating under a different policy. That said, NASCAR could stand to use some consistency. At times they’re definitely making up penalties as they go.
It hurts the credibility of the sport when the sanctioning body isn’t consistently enforcing things, or drawing clear distinctions ahead of time for what is and is not OK.
I know we and everyone else has spent a lot of time talking about this, this week (and generally we hate to have two posts of similar topics on the same week), but we like to be able to foster and facilitate discussion. Overall I think this week has been interesting in the development of this new doctrine – though I honestly don’t believe anything will change.
I know you’re saying right now, “Journo, what the heck are you talking about?” Give me a minute.
After Kyle and Juan Pablo Montoya got together on lap 103 (Montoya was about to get lapped by Busch who was in the lead), Kyle gave a very snarky interview to TNT. He said:
“Yeah, I guess it was my fault. I’m going to down the straight away as straight as I can be, and I went right across the nose of the 42 for nothing else to do…Yeah, I wanted to wreck myself.”
Kyle was not a happy camper, and rightfully so. As laughably sarcastic as the interview was, I think it was a bit of a breakthrough for Kyle.
How often in the past have we seen an angry Kyle Busch refuse interviews? The answer is a lot. Seldom is there a time I can recall him getting out of a wrecked racecar and giving an interview. In fact we’ve seen Kyle get out of his racecar when he hasn’t had such a bad day and refuse interviews.
This isn’t necessarily a slam on Kyle, he’s an intense guy who isn’t happy with anything less than a win (and he doesn’t want to talk about it when he’s had a bad day). It’s this intense focus and drive that has gotten him where he is today. Still there were/are definitely times it could be toned down (especially for the benefit of his sponsors). I think Kyle is starting to realize that.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence this growth in maturity has coincided with Kyle’s new position as a team owner, and his pending nuptials. Additionally, Kyle’s PR guy Bill Janitz deserves a big pat on the back. The 2009 recipient of NASCAR’s most valuable Cup series PR rep award, Janitz is one of the best in the business – I think we all can agree anyone who can effectively handle Kyle Busch is a master at his craft.
Needless to say, these things and others are starting to ground a still very young driver. This may be a little premature, but I think we’re seeing a guy who is growing tremendously both personally and professionally. Kyle has a bright future – and with a little media savvy he can do nothing but build his brand.
I don’t know about you, but I like this guy who’s willing to do interviews. He gives great soundbites, and let’s his personality show through. And after all don’t we watch for the characters, the drama, and the emotion?
I’ve taken a little grief from the readers regarding my post from last week about Joey Logano needing a short memory after wrecking big at Dover. Some of you thought I was reading too much into his post wreck comments (to be honest, Journo thought I was too), and that you thought he would be fine. And now that Logano has raced, and won, I’ve had a few more folks call me out over the post.
I think it’s funny that I’m catching some flack over the post, because I never said Logano wasn’t going to get it done. I never even said I thought he was afraid, or that it was going to affect him. All I said was that it worried me that he admitted some fear, because fear will paralyze a driver. And I also said that he he was going to need a short memory and be able to move past it.
And guess what?
He did just that.
On Saturday in Kansas, Logano made a dramatic closing laps pass to get by his teammate Kyle Busch and score the Nationwide Series win. He didn’t fare as well on Sunday, finishing 28th in the Cup race, but he didn’t seem to show any ill effects from the tumble he took the week before. I even heard that he told reporters that the Dover crash made him more confident in the cars he is climbing into every week.
Moving forward, I think it’s big for Logano’s confidence that he was able to climb back into his car and prevail. He showed that he still has that fearless mindset that teams look for in young drivers, and the ability to bounce back from a little adversity. Chalk this one up as another learning experience for Logano in his rookie season.
Kudos to you Joey Logano.
While doing my usual internet trolling tonight, I came across Tom Bowles’ weekly “Did You Notice” piece over at The Frontstretch. In it, he talks about Joey Logano’s reaction to his wild wreck this past weekend at Dover. If you haven’t seen Logano’s wreck, click here. Bowles quotes Logano as saying:
“It just really scared the heck out of me. I’m not sure I want to see a replay. It started rolling and I was in there like, ‘Damn, please make this thing stop.’ And it wouldn’t. It just kept going and going. It just startled me.”
The main point made by Bowles is that drivers are losing some of the killer instinct made famous by some of the NASCAR greats. I see his point, but what immediately jumps out at me is his admitted fear. It worries me that Logano said it, and I’m interested to see if Logano lets this affect him down the road.
I wrote a post about a year ago about drivers and fear (see it here), and Logano’s comments brought me right back to it. If they want to have any level of success in racing, a driver has to be absolutely fearless. And on top of that, they need to have a short memory. Remembering a previous wreck while taking to the track will only slow a driver down.
Don’t know what I mean by fearless? How about Rusty Wallace’s horrible crash at Daytona in 1993. He tumbled countless times down the backstretch and ended up coming to rest in a destroyed race car. He followed that up by winning the next race at Rockingham, and then added nine more victories before that season ended. And all this was well before the introduction of the modern, safer COT.
When Logano hits the track this weekend in Kansas, he needs to have forgotten that Dover ever happened. His young career will be over very quickly if he harbors this fear of wrecking and holds back. I don’t want to name any drivers here, but too many have let a bad wreck ruin what was a promising career.
NASCAR is a dangerous sport. If a driver cannot handle that, and be able to wreck and keep digging, then he needs to find something else to do. Here’s to hoping Logano pulls a reverse Jimmy Spencer and forgets everything.