Catchfence

What Talladega showed aside from everything else is the rampant credibility gaps that exist between the sport and its participants. Much has been focused on the credibility issues that exist with the sanctioning body, and those were exacerbated at Talladega with Mike Helton’s bluff at the prerace drivers meeting. That bluff, though, also exposed the credibility gap that exists for the sport’s drivers, for it was drivers – among them Jeff Gordon as we now know via his own admission – who lobbied NASCAR for “no bump” zones.

Now Tony Stewart has exacerbated the drivers’ credibility gap with his claim that the races are not boring and concurrent attack on the Race-Stream Media over fan backlash after Talladega.

“(You) can fight your guts out and try to get to the front in 100 miles, but what have you accomplished? You haven’t accomplished anything, absolutely nothing.”

This makes Stewart so wrong that I’d call him a liar. For what you’ve accomplished is you’ve gone for the lead. Stewart can talk about driving smart, but driving smart and racing for the lead are not incompatable – indeed the issue of driving smart isn’t relevant to the competitive value of the racing. When Stewart says the races aren’t boring, he’s become a points-racer, not a real racer.

Real racing is going for the lead, no matter the lap. Of course there is an ebb and flow to a race – that will never change, and it doesn’t change that going for the lead is what matters. You cannot win if you don’t lead, and going for the lead means everything between Lap One and Mile 500.

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Jeff Gordon adds to the drivers’ credibility gap. Acknowledging his role in lobbying NASCAR for “no bump” zones, Gordon made statements that, like Stewart’s, betray that a points-racing mentality has replaced the mentality of the real racer. “Bump-drafting through the corners is ridiculous.” False – it’s passing. “I think it’s what allowed 30-plus cars to be on the lead lap (late in the race.” False again – it was no different from April and last October.

The credibility gap exists because drivers have become liars. Gordon’s rhetoric continues when he says, “We need to get out there and work hard to swap positions. Track position is so important in our series, and then they create a car that it’s not important, that you can kind of get up front whenever you want. Eventually you’ll have guys that say ‘We have 500 miles to go, we’re going to just sit here and ride.’”

Where Gordon is damnably wrong is the premise he uses that racing is better when it is hard to pass. This is mind-boggling stupidity. In NASCAR track postition is so important because it’s too hard to pass. At Talladega we have racing where the driver can actually pull off the pass; everywhere else what the sport has is aeropush and general handling getting in the way of passing.

Racing is not supposed to be that way. Lead changes are supposed to rule over aeropush and handling. Now his point about drivers just riding has some merit, but only because it’s the mentality of most drivers in virtually all the races. The reality is there is almost no hunger in these drivers between points-racing and the general lack of incentive to fight.

It says something that Gordon’s motives for lobbying NASCAR have come under fire from Denny Hamlin, as Gordon’s motives appear to stem from weakness in his racecar.

It also says a lot about these drivers that Talladega was ultimately a fight between drivers who still have the hunger, and one of them – Jamie McMurray, given up for dead for most of his career after 2003 – outfought the field. McMurray’s career may be baffling in that he’s won just three races, but his wins at the 2007 Firecracker and this year’s Autumn 500 outrank anything Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart have done in terms of competitive legitimacy.

Drivers like Gordon and Stewart thus have no credibility and should not be treated otherwise regardless of how many championships they’ve won. A real racer wants to run open throttle, draft and push-draft, and fight for the lead as they do at Talladega – and in April we heard the words of a real racer in Brad Keselowski. The lack of fire that Gordon and Stewart showed in their comments earns them contempt, because they’ve shown they’re not racers.