| | WHAT TO DO...? | Most agree union won't work, but something is needed | |
| | By Reid Spencer / NASCAR.com BRISTOL, TN -- Ask someone from NASCAR to name the vilest word in the English language, and you might get a five-letter response: U-N-I-O-N.
Historically, the sanctioning body has resisted, with all its might, attempts to organize drivers into a unified body -- if that's even possible where the individualists who pilot racecars are concerned.
In 1961, Curtis Turner earned a lifetime ban from NASCAR racing for attempting to create a drivers union -- until Big Bill France commuted his sentence in 1965. NASCAR later squashed the Professional Drivers Association spearheaded by Richard Petty, after France held the inaugural race at Talladega in 1969 despite a boycott of the sport's top stars.
Tony Stewart's outspoken criticism about the hard tires used last week at Atlanta has brought to the forefront the larger question of drivers' input into competition issues. How much should they have, if any? And what form should it take?
Dale Earnhardt Jr., for one, doesn't expect to see a formal drivers organization, but he'd like to believe that NASCAR is listening when those behind the wheels speak their minds.
"There's all kinds -- a million different ways that that could be done -- it's obviously not likely," Earnhardt said of a drivers organization. "The main situation is that, as a driver, you have a hard time listening and believing someone that has never been behind the wheel trying to tell you what needs to happen out on the racetrack, or how things need to be, or should be or this is the way to go."
Only a driver knows what it's like, Earnhardt says, to approach a corner at Daytona that has an awkward transition to the soft walls, or to hit a gap in the backstretch wall at Las Vegas, as Jeff Gordon's Chevrolet did less than two weeks ago.
"We don't sit around and search these things out just to pester," Earnhardt said. "These are things that we actually run into as we go back to these venues over and over and over, and we continue to get frustrated with it and eventually might run into [NASCAR president] Mike [Helton] somewhere or someone and say 'Hey, this is what I think, take it for what it's worth,' and that's that.
"I would like to think that NASCAR does talk to the drivers, the Jeff Burtons and those types. Jeff always errs on the side of safety, and he always has great points and great ideas, in my opinion. I would like to believe that NASCAR does have conversations with those guys somewhere, wherever it would be. I would like to think those things do go on, and that there's a driver influence in a lot of their decisions. I would hope that's the way it is.
"It's just a sort of secret society thing that nobody knows about. That needs to be the case. Atlanta was just a reminder of that, really.
"We all do sound off and go push buttons a little too hard sometimes, but for the most part, we don't want to ruin the racing for the sport. We don't want to make it worse for the fans. We want to make it as big as we can make it, just like the rest of the guys in that [NASCAR] trailer down there do. We've got the same thing at stake when we go home. It's just as important to us that the race is great."
Stewart, who ignited the firestorm over tires, is content to express his own opinion as he sees fit and leave it at that.
"There was [a drivers association] in the IRL [Indy Racing League], but we never really did anything," he said Wednesday during a NASCAR Winner's Circle appearance at Martinsville Speedway. "I don't know that I want to be a part of that. I'm not sure I'm smart enough ...
"There's a lot that goes on. I'm one side of the pie, one side of the equation from the driver's side. Especially when you get up to this level of racing with NASCAR, there's so many angles -- marketing, advertising. How do you keep the fans happy? How do you keep the teams happy? How do you keep the drivers happy? There's a lot of variables that go into making that, and I'm not sure I want to be part of the decision-making process on that.
"If I feel like there's something that I first-hand have experience that something's not right, I don't have a problem saying, 'Hey, I think this is not right.' Then it's up to the people that do make the decisions to do the right thing at that point."
Gordon, Earnhardt's teammate, pointed to the negative effects strikes have had on other professional sports but nevertheless believes that drivers should voice their concerns and issues to NASCAR en masse.
"I think we all have so many different agendas and ideas that to see them all try to come together as one would be tough," Gordon said. "What I would like to do, I would like to see NASCAR have a quarterly meeting where they bring all the drivers into a room and bring up hot topics and talk about things and allow us to vent or to share our opinions -- and just listen to us.
"Just going up into the [NASCAR] trailer one at a time, where one guy says the exact opposite of the next guy who comes in -- I think all it does is confuse them. So we're not going anywhere. I believe communication is the key in every business and every team. We're together with them. We're partners in this whole thing. I would love to work with them further on that, but I'm out of breath doing it individually. It doesn't go anywhere."
| | Posted March 15, 2008 , 3:30 pm EST
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