Tough week for NASCAR with actions of Smoke, fans

Excluding those occasions when people have died in competition, this may well have been NASCAR's all-time worst week.

It all began innocently enough last Saturday night when Tony Stewart was a no-show at the Subway Fresh Fit 500 post-race news conference. Now while that act certainly got under the skin of NASCAR and put a burr under the saddle of a few journalists, it was by no means a show-stopper. It was simply a matter of Tony not being ready to make nice while being mad at ... something.

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After Sunday passed with no word, we all kind of got the feeling that something big was going to go down on Tony's satellite radio show Tuesday night.

Big? Try nuclear.

Imagine NASCAR's dismay as one of its wildly popular and most influential personalities -- not to mention a two-time Cup champion -- calls its very integrity into question by accusing it of manipulating the outcome of races and comparing it to professional wrestling.

Hello, NORAD?

As Tony learned early Friday morning, you shouldn't mess with the tail of a tiger unless you're prepared to deal with its teeth. Clearly he wasn't. Never before have I seen Tony as contrite as he was speaking to the press following his Friday morning coffee with Mike Helton, John Darby and Robin Pemberton (watch video).

E-mail me all you want about how you think the new-school NASCAR is sucking the personality out of the sport. But before you do, ask yourself if old-school Bill France Jr. would have waited until Friday to put a professional wrestling smackdown on Tony? Or would Bill France Jr. have not suspended Tony outright for at least one race?

Considering the billions of dollars in television broadcast rights and race team sponsorships that such accusations put at risk (not to mention your and my loyalties to the sport), Tony got away relatively unscathed.

On a more fundamental level, NASCAR also came face-to-face this week with what I think is a greater threat to its long-term viability, that being the three-headed monster that was Talladega Superspeedway, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Day. It was the perfect storm that everyone saw coming.

Let's start with the beer can throwing morons at the root of it all. How long do you suppose the sport can survive in its present state when all hell breaks loose every time one of its once and future champions has the gall to win in your almighty presence (watch video)?

How personally satisfying it must be to hit racecars, race stewards, or the random woman in the grandstands in front of you with full cans of beer. You don't listen to Dale Earnhardt Jr. urging you to stop. You don't listen to your fellow fans telling you to stop. You certainly don't listen to law enforcement or track officials. Your parents must be so proud.

If a moron will throw a tall boy onto the track at the conclusion of a race, is it that absurd to imagine him throwing one during a race? Is it only a matter of time before that happens? Probably.

Gordon has Dale-like charge at finish

Get mad all you want Earnhardt fans, what David Caraviello saw on Sunday was Jeff Gordon driving to the front in ways that would have made The Intimidator smile.

• Complete story, click here

Let's do the math. Knowing that force = mass x acceleration, a 16 oz. can of beer striking an ideal blow to a car going 200 miles per hour hits with the force of about 2,000 lbs.

"Yeah, that'll teach that pretty boy."

I don't want to speculate on the injury that would cause a driver, but I will speculate on what that would do to the race at Talladega. At worst, it would expose NASCAR and ISC to crippling lawsuits and the track would close. It would scare away the Nextels, the DuPonts, the Budweisers and the Fox Broadcasting Companies of the world. NASCAR racing as we know it would end.

At best, it would mean increased ticket prices to offset higher event insurance and security costs. Plus, it would mean the end of bringing your own beer to the track. That alone would cause anarchy.

Either way, a huge portion of the fan base would walk away from the sport out of sheer embarrassment.

Do you for a minute think that NASCAR's lawyers haven't already thought this through?

To those who were part of the ass-hattery at Talladega, or sympathize with them, I ask this simple question: If the honchos at NASCAR can put a guy like Tony Stewart so firmly in his place, what makes you think that their plan for all NASCAR fans would be any less fierce?

To the rest of us, I ask: Are we as fans strong enough to prevent the crazies among us from ruining the greatest ongoing sporting experience we've ever known?

NASCAR and its fans are at something of a crossroads these days. One thing's for sure, things cannot stay the way they currently are.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.