Analyst familar with open-mic mistakes

McReynolds caught cursing while crew chief for Rudd

FOX/SPEED analyst Larry McReynolds knows a little something about being caught cursing on live television.

	Larry McReynolds
	ALSO On one of NASCAR's most historic days, not one stock car was on any racetrack in the United States.  The date? Feb. 1, 2004. That's the day of Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl.  •   Complete story,  click here

In 1989 at Sonoma, Calif., McReynolds was Ricky Rudd's crew chief. His team was leading, and about to make a pit stop.

According to McReynolds, the paddle man at the entrance to pit road forgot to turn his paddle around to open pit road. The result was a penalty.

And McReynolds wasn't happy about it.

"I was talking about it with an official and I was pretty upset," remembers McReynolds, " and Jack Arute, who was doing pit reporting for ABC or ESPN at the time, stuck his microphone in there and caught me saying a curse word."

However, in 1989, things were a little bit different. The worst conversation that McReynolds had over the incident was with his mother.

"There is no more devout Christian than my mother," says McReynolds. "That was a pretty uncomfortable conversation."

As far as NASCAR, they spoke with Reynolds, but he said it wasn't nearly as big a deal as it would be today.

"They told me to be careful what you say around microphones. That was about it. It was a very casual conversation."

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston says that back then, NASCAR believed a stern talking-to would stop such problems.

"We started with just a talk, then we realized that didn't work, then we fined people, and we realized that didn't work, then we started taking points away. That seems to work."

As it ended up, Rudd won the race.

These days, McReynolds has a different perspective, one that came to light while watching last fall's Talladega race.

"My 14-year-old son puts Dale Earnhardt Jr. on a pedestal," says McReynolds. "We were watching the race and when he said what he said, my son asked 'Why did he say that, Dad?' And you don't really know what to say.

"He said it in jubilation and it came from jubilation, but he knew he was on television and he knew how NASCAR felt about it."

McReynolds understands the reasoning behind NASCAR's tougher stance on on-air profanity. Still, that doesn't mean he has to fully agree with it.

"Janet Jackson's boob turned the whole world around," says McReynolds, referring to the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 when Janet Jackson exposed her breast, igniting a firestorm of tougher regulations from the FCC.

"Our sport is pretty squeaking clean," notes McReynolds. "And I know that we don't want to be like the WWE, but I don't want us to lose the passion.

"We've got to find that balance."