While NASCAR drivers figure out how much license they have to play rough on their oval playground, the ruling elders of NASCAR take a rather lax approach to letting them know.
What I assumed, when NASCAR made its "have at 'em" pronouncements in January, was basically that the officials had decided to "let 'em play." The way it works in basketball, right? No more rinky-dink fouls.
It's one of the more common remarks of coaches at courtside.
"Hey! Hey! Let 'em play, will ya?"
Apparently, though, what NASCAR meant was that there would really be no officiating at all. The Sprint Cup Series is like "shirts and skins," with fouls called under some sort of informal honor system.
"Foul!"
"Aw, man, I didn't touch you!"
"Yeah, you did, dummy, 'cause I called a foul."
Once upon a time, NASCAR decided it was too difficult to keep different kinds of cars competitive with one another, so it decided to make the cars all alike. Now NASCAR has decided it's difficult to officiate what goes on, so it's decided to ... literally ... "have at it" ... and ... "let 'em race."
It's astonishing. It's outrageous. But it's consistent. When NASCAR officials decided they were going to let drivers work their difficulties out among themselves, they weren't kidding. Had Judge Roy Bean, and not Mike Helton, been announcing the decision on Tuesday, he wouldn't have changed many words.
Carl Edwards admitted he used his Ford as a battering ram and turned the Dodge of Brad Keselowski during Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500. The race was probably a success for the sponsor since, within the garage, tools, Kobalt and otherwise, were really important. It was a showcase for the entire tool industry.
He got three weeks' probation, which for the entire time I've written about NASCAR, has been a synonym for "nothing."
Old timers can talk all they want about "the good old days," but if you check the records, the moonshiners of the 1940s and '50s never wrecked nearly as often as the upwardly mobile dandies of today. That's because they needed those old Fords to make a moonshine run down to Chattanooga on Monday night. The drivers of today don't have to fix or pay for what they tear up. It shows.
I am not unsympathetic to Edwards' plight. He, like most men who choose to race automobiles for a living, is excitable, competitive and spirited. At some level, Edwards must have cast himself as Will Kane and Keselowski as Frank Miller. In "High Noon" (1952), Kane was the sheriff left all alone to face Miller, who was out to get him.
Kane, of course, had a badge, at least, when he decided "enough is enough" and took on Miller and his gang. Edwards took the law into his own hands.
Another classic movie, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," defines NASCAR's current view of law enforcement.
"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!"