Stock car racing is about as meaningful to me as Christmas. It is something that other people do or have an interest in, but it is of no significance in my life.
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Dale Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of yesterday's Daytona 500. Last night, I watched some of the television coverage of the aftermath.
At first, the accident seemed like just an inadvertent driving error, where Earnhardt hadn't pulled up far enough in front of the Sterling Marlin's car on his driver's side rear before moving his own car to the left. Earnhardt's left rear bumped the right front end of Marlin's car, causing the front of Earnhardt's car to swerve slightly to the left. Earnhardt apparently over-corrected and swerved, out of control, to the right, slamming into the wall at the top of the track.
At one point during the evening television coverage, the final six laps of the race were shown. It was then that I saw what really precipitated the accident.
During the final laps, Earnhardt was in third place. Way ahead of him on the same lap were a car driven by his son, Dale Junior, and by Michael Waltrip. Both of those two cars were owned by Earnhardt and his racing team.
Several cars tried to get past Earnhardt to move into third place and challenge the leaders, but every time during those final laps, Earnhardt would swerve in front of cars that were trying to pass him, cutting off the other drivers while endangering their lives. Instead of allowing other, faster cars to pass him, Earnhardt sought to assist his teammates by recklessly endangering the lives of any driver who tried to compete fairly.
On the final lap, Martin once again tried to pass Earnhardt, this time on the inside. Once again, Earnhardt tried to cut off Martin, but ended up killing himself through his deliberately reckless driving.
The mainstream press sanitizes what happened by saying that Earnhardt "was fighting for position." That, however, was not at all what happened. Earhhardt was in the lead of the tightly packed group that followed, by some distance, the two leaders. He didn't need to fight for a position. Earnhardt had all the position he needed. He was in front of the pack. All he had to do was drive straight ahead. Instead, he sought to use his car as a weapon to cut off anybody who tried to pass him and challenge the two leaders.
Other reports in the mainstream press say that Earnhardt was "blocking for his teammates." Besides being poor sportsmanship, blocking, in reality, is simply a dangerous, reckless practice that could just as easily have resulted in the deaths of many other drivers.
If NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) wants to make stock car racing substantially safer, they should immediately ban the irresponsible, dangerous and reckless poor sportsmanship practice of drivers cutting off other drivers who try to pass them. Let the other drivers through, or get black flagged off the course before you kill somebody, quite possibly yourself, like Earnhardt did.
Can you imagine any race in track and field where one athlete would be permitted to cut off other racers who tried to pass him? It wouldn't be tolerated. It shouldn't be tolerated in stock car racing, either. It's not allowed in horse racing because it is unfair to other riders and is too dangerous. It isn't even allowed in the National Hockey League, where Rule 67 makes it is a 2-minute obstruction-interference penalty.
This is not a case of picking on a dead man. My condolences go to his family, as if they really care what I think. Rather, I'm picking on NASCAR for allowing drivers to endanger the lives of other drivers by permitting drivers to cut off other drivers who try to pass.
NASCAR should ban blocking, now, before more of their cherished heroes get killed needlessly.
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