Enough Rules Changes !!

by M.L. Morgan

Well, race fans, Nascar’s never-ending search for truth, justice and the level playing field has now become a true spectacle. Six races into the 1998 season and Nascar refuses to let up.

Before the first green flag dropped on an official race Nascar instituted its now legendary 5 & 5 rule. This panacea would even-up the Fords and GM’s at all the non-restrictor plate races. Wrong. Taurus stomped the GM teams - no problem, we’ll shorten the Ford’s spoiler by a little bit - wrong again. O.K., we’ll narrow the Ford’s spoiler, surely that was the missing part of the equality puzzle. You guessed it - this didn’t help either.

Let’s cut to the chase: Nascar absolutely cannot mandate equality. It’s impossible.

There are too many factors even King William II, with his awesome authority, can’t control. The aerodynamics of each manufacturer’s car is very similar and certainly is NOT the big problem most of the losing teams each Sunday cry about. The horsepower of the engines varies by less than 3%. The differences are in the teams - some are just much better than the others.

Six races into the 1998 season no manufacturer has dominated. Chevy has won 3 races, Ford has won 2 races and Pontiac has won 1. That sounds fairly equal to me. Nascar wants to tweak spoiler dimensions and I think it’s a cop-out. Nascar refuses to acknowledge the same few teams will win the majority of the races because they are clearly superior to the others.

You did not see a first-time winner this season and even though the season is still young, I doubt you will. Take a close look at who has won this season. You’ll will not find any trainees there. Now take another look and you’ll see that Bobby Labonte is the only driver on the list who is not part of a multi-car team. Please don’t ignore the fact that multi-car teams will win three-fourths of the races again this season. Adjusting spoiler heights every hour on the hour is not going to change that fact. Nascar insults the intelligence of every race fan every time they make these rules changes. I’m not buying it.

Some of the arguments for Ford’s seeming dominance are very feeble. The facts are obvious; there are more quality Ford teams than there are GM teams. This isn’t brain surgery. It’s as plain as day. Robert Yates or Jack Roush or Roger Penske would be just as competitive if they were fielding GM cars. These are proven winners. Likewise I have no doubt if the Hendrick team switched to Fords they’d be just as competitive as they are now. These people know how to win. No interference from Nascar will alter that fact. But Nascar is so arrogant they will continue to try to give lip-service to all its big-buck subscribers with these incessant rules changes. Trust me.

I saw Gary Nelson, King William II’s lead lackey, on t.v. last weekend trying rationalize why Nascar needs to constantly revise the rules. Spare me, please. Don’t give me that crap about parity or equality. Nascar deals only in dollars and cents. The only equality Nascar cares about is  that equal bucks are coming into their coffers from both the GM and Ford people. If the ticket-buying fans are abused in the process, such is life. They’ll get new fans - that’s why new tracks are springing up all over the country. New customers.

Next time I’ll offer some options to the weekly rules changes which might actually make the playing field a little more level. As I said earlier, this is not brain surgery. I don’t claim to be smarter than anyone with Nascar but I’m definitely not as dumb as Nascar acts like all of us race fans must be.

Check out a great site - A Lighter Side of Nascar. They have a great newsletter and the price is right -FREE.

Have comments or questions? E-mail: M.L. Morgan

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