As I grew older, I got disillusioned with the sport. As I watched, I saw more and more “coincidence” deciding races. There were more debris cautions, questionable officiating, light sentences for blatant cheating, staged fights, temper tantrums, and downright. Speaking of cheating, Mr. #48 got away with the mandatory lost pit selection he was supposed to get for the repeated pit road violations.
There are many disturbing similarities between the NFL, NASCAR, and WWE. It is a "simple" matter of disturbing psychology that is clearly pre-determined. It's simple. Really. Bear with me a moment, hear me out, and actually think about what is said before you say anything.
I start by thanking by my mother, who taught me to see the good and bad in things. She also taught me how to psychoanalyze people, actions, and everything else in between. As a result, I learned to see the manipulative ploys that the media as a whole uses to try to put everyone in a tizzy, and as they have done since the 1800s.
Jimmie Johnson = Tom Brady = John Cena
Chad Knaus = Bill Belichick
Hendrick Motorsports = New England Patriots
"How?" some may ask as they walk away, but I know you'll hear me out first. Now bear in mind you can substitute Kevin Harvick or Brad Keselowski, amongst others, for Jimmie Johnson here, but I am using Mr. #48 because he has the most sordid history of the bunch.
The analogy is this: what do they all have in common? I can't speak for John Cena's cheating allegations because it's too much of a Wikipedia page to read, but we'll touch on cheating later. Cena, Brady, and Johnson all came into the sport as relative unknowns. They all made themselves known with some small success stories and have all become the dominant force in their sports. At this point, put Mr. Cena aside.
What do Brady and Johnson have in common beyond that? They're jerks. They’re whiners. They’re poor sportsmen. They’re egomaniacal. They're disgusting. Johnson has the Sam Hornish saga and his constant boasting of getting drunk on FB, in addition to his regular insults toward the fans, and Brady has his womanizing. They're both known for considering themselves to be on a higher level and that even talking to their teammates is considered beneath them. This is beyond their actual abilities on the playing field, which are irrelevant at this point.
There's also the Belichick/Knaus connection. Both are supposed geniuses, yet both have had no success without cheating. I mean Jimmie Johnson's car has been the most penalized in history except maybe Smokey Yunick's cars, and that is not an exaggeration; just this year alone I believe they have been sent back through the inspection line about 10 extra times, 10 more than everyone else, mind you. The Patriots have had cheating connected to every success they've accomplished. Every Super Bowl win has involved a cheat of some sort, from what the media has fed me between Spygate, Deflategate, and Watergate.
Now why does this work? Psychology is the answer, my friends. Skip went on his angry tirade claiming that, if the sport is rigged, Dale Jr. would win the title every year. Jeff tells us he will never come back on the show. Skip isn't ever coming back because I'm here to tell him that psychology says he's wrong.
Now, before I launch into the full tirade, I will give this benefit: drivers, crews, weather, mechanical failures, and even officials can make mistakes that affect the outcome, meaning it is impossible to 100% fix it. Yes, if Harvick had lost it and wrecked on lap 60 at Homestead last year, we might have seen a different ending.
What sells? Hate sells. Controversy sells. Even teenage vampires sell because they’re controversial and evil. Jimmie Johnson winning titles under the most contrived format in racing history sells. It is a fact that Jimmie Johnson would have only three titles without the Chase, and the argument that they "experiment" during the regular season doesn't hold water. The thought of the New England Patriots deflating footballs sells because who knows how many other games they could have done that in! The latest controversy involving a Kardashian sells. The battle of good versus evil sells. Bruce Jenner, and yes I refuse to call HIM Caitlin, sells because of the immorality involved thereof.
Look at recent NFL champs: Pats, Seahawks, Steelers, and Ravens. Look at the last 11 years of NASCAR champions: Stewart, Harvick, Johnson, and Keselowski.
What do they have in common? It is hard to find any competitors in either sport who are more unlikable than these particular competitors are. Why does this work? Hate sells tickets. People watch NASCAR races because they want to see Kevin Harvick or Brad Keselowski wreck. People watched the Super Bowl to root against the Patriots. People watch to root against the villain. When there is no villain, there is no media frenzy; when there's no media frenzy, there's no media coverage to encourage viewership. And then when the villain wins, people tune in again next season in hopes of seeing the tables turned. It’s just like Hollywood: if the villain died right at the beginning of the series, you wouldn’t watch; instead, you end up watching part of an episode, then the whole episode, then a season, and eventually you watch 10 years of the series waiting for the villain to lose, and sometimes it doesn’t even happen. The more the evil wins, the more people tune in hoping to see good prevail. In fact, more and more TV series appear to be built around the concept of an anti-hero instead!
Think of last year's Homestead race: Harvick, Newman, Hamlin, and Logano. Notice that the only non-controversial figure in that race, Logano, was the only non-factor.
Harvick was a factor with his history of dirty driving and bitter commentary (occasionally foul), including "starting" the fight at Texas. And did you notice I put "starting" in quotation marks?
Newman was a factor with his controversial dumping of Kyle Larson that in any other race would have been a stiff penalty; add in that he hadn't contended for a win all year-long, and you have a *shock* media frenzy!
Hamlin was for the most part a factor taken out by the human mistakes that not even NASCAR can control, but that would have been a bit of a feel good story after his eye incident earlier in the season.
Flash yourselves back to the 1990s, where the biggest controversies were Dale Earnhardt’s games and Swervin’ Irvan’s swervin’, and those aren’t even controversial compared to today! Oh, yeah, and Jeff Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports were getting away with cheating.
But followed by Jeff Gordon's crew chief making a blunder that took the win away after Jeff lead over half the race, a mistake that even a child wouldn’t make. Jeff winning would have created a media overshadow of the title race because then the focus would have been on Newman's non-penalty at Phoenix costing Jeff the title, taking light away from the champion. Jeff's crew chief then proceeded to make excuses about that for weeks when it normally would have been a slap on the face and forgotten. It promoted the fact that it left the "thrilling" Harvick-Newman battle that served NASCAR's purpose of making winning the finale all-important, and I take this from NASCAR's promotions of this farce starting in January. In short, Alan Gustafson's apology tour kept the sport in the light a little while between Homestead and the post-season awards banquet. I have learned over the years that the media loves to ignore the Homestead winner unless it is a driver involved in the championship recently.
Notice how only NBC and FOX promoted the Stewart-Ward incident using the "Stewart killed Ward" angle and how they both continue to do so. Notice how Deflategate, and in the past Spygate, were jammed down our throats. People watch out of hate. If Jeff Gordon won the title in 2015, it would be too easily dismissed as a fixed sport because it's Jeff's last season, and it would drive away viewers because people would "see it coming." If Junior wins the title, people would ignore it because it would be "fixed because he's popular."
Stewart always had a bad temper, but it didn't become this big deal until AFTER Big E died. Once that died off, we got the Busch-Spencer saga, which was immediately followed by Busch's 2004 title. Then the Stewart controversy returned in 2004-05 followed by another Stewart title. This was followed by the mellow 2006, which saw viewers dropped, then 2007, which had the controversy of Jimmie winning a title that Jeff would have clinched TWO races early without the Chase, and we had the controversy of Jeff being ripped off a title. This led into a promotion of Johnson as the "bad guy" capitalized by the completely immature Johnson-Hornish saga. 2009 culminated with Jimmie then ended with winning over what would have been the feel-good Mark Martin title.
2011 treated us to the Homestead finale where we had the Stewart-Edwards tie with them 1-2 at Homestead and Edwards managing to lead the most laps in spite of having only one race win via pit strategy and riding along for top-10s all season. In fact, Edwards hadn't led the most laps in a single race since the previous year's Homestead race.
Enter Brad Keselowski in 2012 with all that followed in the drama of the Brad Keselowski versus Jimmie Johnson with both running off their mouths more than presidential candidates. It comes down to a battle of mechanical gremlins that neither had all year, but that perfectly set up a battle between Bowyer and Gordon for the win just one week after the previous week’s controversy.
In the past, it was Dale Earnhardt getting the “special restrictor plate”, a chunk of metal that has made quite the journey over the years, finding its seat on Danica and Austin Dillon’s cars, amongst others. We have had the small controversies that went virtually unknown (the 1973 Texas 500 where even Richard Petty says Joe Frasson lapped the field multiple times) and the big controversies (1959 Daytona 500) that are still debated to this day. There were the little things, like letting Smokey’s 7/8th’s car in the race just to have a GM car out there, and now we have progressed into this era where everything that happens must be doubted due to the regularity of questionable calls. It is one thing to have the occasional questionable call on an out in baseball, but it’s another to have coincidence surround every event that occurs over an 11-year period that just happens to begin with the reign of someone in particular.
In short, it’s always the biggest jerks winning the title only AFTER they become big jerks. In it all, we have the theme that hate sells. It is a disturbing psychology problem, and I, for one, am too smart to fall for it. If you made a “Jerk of the Year”, list going back to 2004, I don’t believe that it’s coincidence that it would, driver-for-driver, match the list of champions. And it is for all the reasons I have mentioned why so many legends who really knows the ins-and-outs of the sport feel the way I do about the sport. They see it the way I do, and it disgusts them too because in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the guys that NASCAR promoted were promoted because they were likeable and down-to-earth men with a genuine attitude who got a thrill out of driving. It was a battle to see who was the smartest and toughest. And that was the spin: watch to see tough guys battle through heat, cars, and the track to reach the checkers first.
Now we get to see the spoiled rich boy spectacle. We get to see Hendrick Motorsports work backroom deals to make sure the #48 and #4 are by far the best. I sincerely believe I could win driving those things given the same amount of time to practice and qualify and wreck with less than half of Mr. #48's frequency. I watched an in-car at Martinsville a few years ago, and Denny Hamlin was turning the steering wheel less to get through the corners than I do to negotiate the bends on Route 1. Last I checked Donnie Allison didn't have power steering or semi-automatic transmissions. But I'm a science man.
Nevertheless, it is sad to look back on those days of the #24 regalia all over the place in my room… hats, shirts, and even bed set. I enjoy the memories as they helped formed who I am, but it’s sad to see no heroes anymore. There is nothing admirable about those folks that are out there now, except for a few folks named David Ragan, Morgan Shepherd, and Trevor Bayne. I wouldn’t want my brother to look up to them the same way I looked up to Mark Martin, Bill Elliott, Terry and Bobby Labonte, Jeff and Ward Burton, Jeff Gordon, Ricky Rudd, and a whole host of other guys who were around those almost 20 years ago. Even my old favorite Jeff Gordon is just another peg in the wheel who sits back and plays with names orchestrated within his team and more so within the sport. And now Jeff is going to be announcing with Ol’DW. Be still my aching, bleeding heart. There are no heroes in NASCAR anymore.
In the past, we had some characters like Curtis and Little Joe. We had Fearless Freddie. We had the King. We had Papa Lee. A man called Buck and his son Buddy were there too. We had a thrill seeker known as "The Turtle" who just putted around on the apron enjoying the ride. There was the occasional shady back room deal, but for all intents and purposes the season got to play its own conclusion even if Pierre appeared in a few races. If somehow Ned Jarrett won the 1961 title with only one win, so what?
It is sad to say, but NASCAR and NFL are a direct reflection of our increasing corrupt society. It's now a story of who can be the bigger villain; who can drink more alcohol; who can whine more when some races hard; who can be the biggest primadonna? No mature adult could behave the way any one of those 43 folks you see out there behave except for a couple already named exceptions, and who're they to Brian Z. France? But then again, our country's maturity standards have diminished immensely in the last 15 years. I don't know about you, but I'm going to sit with guys named Rex White, Johnny Allen, Ralph Liguori (the funniest man alive), and Dick Passwater, talk to them for a few hours, and just absorb the stories, as we ignore the present and remember fondly the past. It's not good to be angry, so we just bask in the good. I'm going to go watch some real stock cars race without corruption in the Pirelli World Challenge. If I wanted to watch effeminate drivers race neutered cars on neutered tracks, I’d go to New Smyrna and watch the powder puff division.
Last summer, I had the privilege of meeting Bill Wimble. I spoke to him for 45 minutes or more. I absorbed every word that man said to remember forever. When it was all said and done, I told him the truth, “I read all the stories and always thought drivers were heroes. Mr. Wimble, you really are a hero.”
There are few drivers nowadays who have the kind of humility to even sign autographs as some of them consider themselves too good for even that! How many would sit down and tell all their stories to a kid for one or two hours? If you get more than 10 drivers who ran a Cup race in the last five years, you’ve miscounted or counted someone you shouldn’t have. I want to talk to people who are the same in person as they are in the stories about them.
It pained me even further when we met Ned Jarrett last year, and he told my mom, “Ma’am, you probably don’t even know who I am.” But it made him so happy that she did, I did, and even my younger brother did! I’d be amazed if the entire Sprint Cup garage combined, drivers, mechanics, crew chiefs, and owners combined, has that much humility.
NASCAR has grown as a direct reflection of our increasingly evil society, and yes I shall inject my personal beliefs at this small section. We see a society where popularity in Hollywood and coincidentally society is defined almost exclusively by how many sins, as a defined by the Bible, you can commit. I see it even in the scientific community where people reach false conclusions about a range of issues only as a means of justifying mortal sins. Look at global warming for one, and I am a weatherman educated by weathermen who are global warming advocates!
NASCAR’s full of it, and I’m not falling for it for one more minute. For me, the last NASCAR Cup Series champion was a man named Matt Kenseth, the last man who got rewarded for putting together a full calendar year of great driving. The sport essentially folded then and there for me, or I sometimes just use the 36 race non-Chase champion. Big Bill liked seeing a 56 race; even a 62 race, champion, and I dare Mr. #48 and Mr. Harvick to top that when they need a 10-race playoff to win a title because they can’t put together 36 races. NASCAR – in my mind after all this train of thought, and I warn all listeners that this is only my opinion and not a fact— is fixed.
There, I said it.
