NASCAR: Changing rules at the drop of a hat

By Jim Huber, Turner Sports Interactive
June 5, 2001
9:37 AM EDT (1337 GMT)

Commentary

I was watching the seventh game of the NBA Eastern Conference finals Sunday night and, once Philadelphia began to pull away, my mind did, too.

Jim Huber

There was Iverson cutting through traffic, getting elbowed and kneed along the way, laying up a shot before being splattered into the hardcourt.

No whistle.

You know the look by now, you know the fierce knotting of the forehead and the follow-up scream.

"Whassup with that?"

The referee calmly turns and says: "Sorry, Al, that's no longer a foul."

"Whaa? "The league decided this morning you have to show blood before we can call that."

"It was a damn foul yesterday but not today?"

"Yessir. Sorry."

Tiger is on the 7th green, ahead by a shot in the final round of the Memorial. His putt rolls up over a mound, trickles down the steep slope and falls in for a birdie.

As he and his caddie leave the green, they notice the scoreboard being changed. It now says he's tied for the lead.

"Should be a two-shot lead," he mutters to his bag man.

"No, man, you didn't hear? They changed that. That's now a bogey."

"Whaaa?"

"You didn't hear? They changed that rule just yesterday."

"In the middle of a tournament?"

Barry Bonds' 30th home run of the season easily clears the right-field wall. As he begins his well-practiced trot, the first-base umpire stops him.

"Sorry, pal, that's not a home run anymore."

"Whaaa?"

"National League decided yesterday all balls to the right of that foul-pole are now homers. Anything to the left are foul balls now."

"Right in the middle of the season, they change the rule?" "You got it. By the way, you've got a 2-2 count now."

You know, certainly, none of this could possibly occur.

Established sports all use their off-season to tinker with the rules and then they are generally offered up to the players associations for their input/approval. It only makes good sense to do it that way, doesn't it?

Except in NASCAR, apparently.

I've never, ever, come across a sport that changes it's rules mid-stream, sometimes mid-weekend. It happened just last week, four months into the season, rules that only the crew chiefs probably understand but rules, nonetheless. Far as I know, only one guy screamed out loud.

"Whaaa?" yelled Jimmy Spencer.

And I'd love to have heard the answer.

"It's that way on Thursday and this way on Friday?" he asked.

"How can that be?"

How indeed.

If something is not working, you fix it during the off-season when every team has an equal chance at making the change. The way it works now, doesn't work.

Seems like there's an awful lot of nit-picking in this sport to begin with. Seems to me the time to pick nits, if you must, is either long past or six months away.

Whaaa???

Jim Huber's column appears every Tuesday on NASCAR.com. The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.