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Long read but worth the time.
July 03, 2011|By Mike Bianchi, SPORTS COMMENTARY
DAYTONA BEACH — They raced Saturday night at Daytona.
And they will race next week, too.
And next year.
And the year after that.
And probably 10 years after that.
No matter what, they race.
They always race.
No lockouts here like in the NFL and NBA.
No labor disputes.
No, you would never see Coke Zero race winner David Ragan arguing with team owner Jack Roush over who gets a bigger piece of the revenue pie.
In fact, you won't find any owners and drivers arguing over who should get a bigger percentage of the sport's billion-dollar jackpot.
"They're going to drive whether there's rain, snow or sleet," said Florida State football coach Jimbo Fisher, the grand marshal of Saturday night's Coke Zero 400. "It's a sport that is always there for you. You know, these guys are going to show up and race every week. That's why many of us are such huge fans."
Football. Baseball. Basketball. Hockey. They've all stopped working over the years for one reason or another and given sports fans more information than they ever wanted to know about things like decertification and revenue sharing.
Not NASCAR. Every week, every year, every decade, the show goes on. Days of thunder. Nights of wonder. Just like in the Coke Zero 400 when Ragan redeemed himself after a monumental blunder on a late restart at the Daytona 500 to cross the finish line for his first career victory Saturday night as sparks were flying and cars were crashing behind him.
"The fans never have to worry that the drivers aren't going to drive or that the team owners are going to lock the racers out of their cars," Roush said after watching his driver's virgin victory Saturday night.
This is a sport that hasn't had a labor dispute in more than 40 years. And that one lasted all of one week.
It happened in 1969 when a group of drivers, including the great Richard Petty, had the idea of forming a union – the Professional Drivers Association. One of the union's first official actions was to boycott a race at Talladega because the drivers felt the track was unsafe.
Bill France, then the owner and CEO of NASCAR, essentially told the boycotting drivers, "If you don't want to race then pack up your things and get out of the garages." France then filled out the field with lower-level drivers who raced at Talladega in front of a capacity crowd.
That was the end of the Professional Drivers Association.
Space shuttle astronaut Tony Antonelli, the honorary race starter of Saturday's Coke Zero 400, is a long-time NASCAR fan and recites a mantra that many drivers have come to realize since stock-car racing began more than 60 years ago.
"NASCAR is pretty quick to tell the drivers that you need NASCAR more than NASCAR needs you," Antonelli says. "That's not a bad way for any of us to be; to understand that it's a big world and we're just a little piece of it."
To many fans, this is the allure of NASCAR: They know that – no matter what – if they buy a ticket to a race, their favorite driver is going to be there. In today's professional sports world, there are three things you can count on: (1) $8 beers, (2) The Pirates finishing below .500, (3) NASCAR drivers showing up for work.
It's always amazed me how NASCAR drivers manage to compete every week while golfers cannot. Can you imagine, how much more popular the sport of golf would be if Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson competed in every stop on the PGA Tour like Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. do at ever race on the NASCAR circuit?
A couple of years ago, Mickelson and Woods both sat out what was billed as an important Fed-Ex Cup event because both said they were "tired." In fact, Phil lamented at the time that over a three-month period prior to the tournament he had had "no more than two days off at a time."
Oh the humanity! No more than two days off at a time for three whole months? What is PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem running anyway – a third-world sweat shop?
This is the beauty of NASCAR, a sport where the most famous drivers in the world still act as if they are no-name rookies who must prove themselves every week. They play tired and they play hurt.
NASCAR drivers have raced with broken arms, broken sternums and broken collarbones. Richard Petty even raced once with a broken neck.
And who will ever forget when former driver Ricky Rudd, involved in a serious accident in a qualifying race, drove the next day with his eyes so swollen he taped them open with duct tape?
Go ahead, NBA.
Go ahead, NFL.
Lock yourselves out.
Knock yourselves out.
On this Fourth of July weekend, David Ragan and the good ol' boys of NASCAR showed once again that there is at least one sport America can still count on.
July 03, 2011|By Mike Bianchi, SPORTS COMMENTARY
DAYTONA BEACH — They raced Saturday night at Daytona.
And they will race next week, too.
And next year.
And the year after that.
And probably 10 years after that.
No matter what, they race.
They always race.
No lockouts here like in the NFL and NBA.
No labor disputes.
No, you would never see Coke Zero race winner David Ragan arguing with team owner Jack Roush over who gets a bigger piece of the revenue pie.
In fact, you won't find any owners and drivers arguing over who should get a bigger percentage of the sport's billion-dollar jackpot.
"They're going to drive whether there's rain, snow or sleet," said Florida State football coach Jimbo Fisher, the grand marshal of Saturday night's Coke Zero 400. "It's a sport that is always there for you. You know, these guys are going to show up and race every week. That's why many of us are such huge fans."
Football. Baseball. Basketball. Hockey. They've all stopped working over the years for one reason or another and given sports fans more information than they ever wanted to know about things like decertification and revenue sharing.
Not NASCAR. Every week, every year, every decade, the show goes on. Days of thunder. Nights of wonder. Just like in the Coke Zero 400 when Ragan redeemed himself after a monumental blunder on a late restart at the Daytona 500 to cross the finish line for his first career victory Saturday night as sparks were flying and cars were crashing behind him.
"The fans never have to worry that the drivers aren't going to drive or that the team owners are going to lock the racers out of their cars," Roush said after watching his driver's virgin victory Saturday night.
This is a sport that hasn't had a labor dispute in more than 40 years. And that one lasted all of one week.
It happened in 1969 when a group of drivers, including the great Richard Petty, had the idea of forming a union – the Professional Drivers Association. One of the union's first official actions was to boycott a race at Talladega because the drivers felt the track was unsafe.
Bill France, then the owner and CEO of NASCAR, essentially told the boycotting drivers, "If you don't want to race then pack up your things and get out of the garages." France then filled out the field with lower-level drivers who raced at Talladega in front of a capacity crowd.
That was the end of the Professional Drivers Association.
Space shuttle astronaut Tony Antonelli, the honorary race starter of Saturday's Coke Zero 400, is a long-time NASCAR fan and recites a mantra that many drivers have come to realize since stock-car racing began more than 60 years ago.
"NASCAR is pretty quick to tell the drivers that you need NASCAR more than NASCAR needs you," Antonelli says. "That's not a bad way for any of us to be; to understand that it's a big world and we're just a little piece of it."
To many fans, this is the allure of NASCAR: They know that – no matter what – if they buy a ticket to a race, their favorite driver is going to be there. In today's professional sports world, there are three things you can count on: (1) $8 beers, (2) The Pirates finishing below .500, (3) NASCAR drivers showing up for work.
It's always amazed me how NASCAR drivers manage to compete every week while golfers cannot. Can you imagine, how much more popular the sport of golf would be if Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson competed in every stop on the PGA Tour like Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. do at ever race on the NASCAR circuit?
A couple of years ago, Mickelson and Woods both sat out what was billed as an important Fed-Ex Cup event because both said they were "tired." In fact, Phil lamented at the time that over a three-month period prior to the tournament he had had "no more than two days off at a time."
Oh the humanity! No more than two days off at a time for three whole months? What is PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem running anyway – a third-world sweat shop?
This is the beauty of NASCAR, a sport where the most famous drivers in the world still act as if they are no-name rookies who must prove themselves every week. They play tired and they play hurt.
NASCAR drivers have raced with broken arms, broken sternums and broken collarbones. Richard Petty even raced once with a broken neck.
And who will ever forget when former driver Ricky Rudd, involved in a serious accident in a qualifying race, drove the next day with his eyes so swollen he taped them open with duct tape?
Go ahead, NBA.
Go ahead, NFL.
Lock yourselves out.
Knock yourselves out.
On this Fourth of July weekend, David Ragan and the good ol' boys of NASCAR showed once again that there is at least one sport America can still count on.
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