Position is always there for the taking -- even if it isn't

Here's the way it's supposed to work. You have 43 cars on the racetrack, often competing in tight, confined spaces, and nobody wants to end up in the wall. The result is an unwritten rule, a sort of fair-play agreement which holds that in NASCAR as on the interstate highway, the faster vehicle should be given the right of way. It's simple, it's easy, it's meritocratic. It's called give and take.

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It's a noble idea that carries the full backing of NASCAR, which stresses the procedure to its competitors before every Nextel Cup event. Yet in practice, it's virtually unworkable. Too many times it leads to situations such as the one involving Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart on Monday at Dover International Speedway, where each driver thought the other should have done the giving. You end up with wrecked racecars, stoked tempers, and the title of a White Stripes song: Take, take, take.

On those rare occasions when it happens like it's supposed to -- such as the event earlier this season at Talladega Superspeedway -- even the drivers seem amazed, and post-race news conferences are full of laudatory comments about how everyone behaved themselves and kept their cool. But more often than not, in a sport where track position is so crucially important, drivers give only when they're forced to. Charity, if there is any, must be extended by the other guy. Everyone preaches give and take, but very few actually practice it.

We saw it in Mexico City, where neither Juan Montoya or Scott Pruett would yield in a corner wide enough for only one car. We saw it in Atlanta, where Jimmie Johnson held off Stewart's last gasp by pinching him into the wall. We saw it in Martinsville, where Jeff Gordon's angry howls over the radio conveyed his frustration over being faster than Johnson, yet unable to get by. We saw it in Charlotte, where overeager competitors drove the first 100 miles like it was the last 100, leaving a trail of twisted sheet metal in their wake.

And we saw it Monday on Lap 271 at Dover, when Busch zoomed past Stewart on the inside as the cars exited Turn 4 (watch video). But Busch wasn't completely clear, and Stewart wasn't going to give him the additional six inches he needed. Suddenly two potentially winning cars are wrecked, Stewart's jackman has to jump out of the way when the No. 2 car makes an unexpected trip down pit road, and Busch is $100,000 and 100 points lighter. All because two guys couldn't play give and take.

Busch's knee-jerk reaction, of course, is inexcusable, something the driver himself seemed to realize immediately afterward. Even though replays show Busch was in complete control of his car and might not have hit Jason Lee even if the crewman hadn't leapt out of the way -- harkening back to the old days, when a mechanic stood at the top of the stall holding his driver's pit sign -- he fully deserved to be parked for the remainder of the Dover event, and hit with a penalty that may very well keep him out of the Chase.

Busch penalized

Kurt Busch was penalized 100 points and fined $100,000 for his Dover actions on pit road.

• Complete story, click here
• Pemberton responds to penalty
• Busch thought he would sit out
• Pate: Penalty doesn't fit crime
• Garage mixed on penalty

"There are a lot of people in the garage who believe he got off easy. One hundred points is huge, though," Jeff Burton told reporters at Pocono Raceway. "You think about it, there are 13 races to go until the Chase, and he's got 100 points to make up in addition to what he has to make up already. They parked him. Not only did they penalize him that 100, but whatever he lost not being able to get back out there the other day, he lost those points, too. Maybe that was only three points, I don't know how many it would have been. But it's something, and it's a pretty severe penalty."

But Stewart isn't completely blameless here. "My biggest pet peeve with guys is not giving and taking," he said on his satellite radio program earlier this week. This from the same guy who wrecked Busch when he committed late to a corner at Talladega three years ago, who didn't give a faster Jamie McMurray any room at Phoenix last year, who didn't back off the throttle the little bit it would have taken to prevent Monday's dramatics. "There was not a lot of give and take right there," TV commentator Larry McReynolds said as the accident unfolded before him.

That's because give and take, at least the concept as we're meant to understand it, is fiction. Drivers are too competitive, too stubborn, too unwilling to yield. They don't even have to be near the front -- in the era of the free pass, a lapped driver is just as liable to cause a headstrong pileup as someone racing for the win. Young drivers are born of short races on short tracks where they're taught to get to the lead as quickly as they can. It's difficult to show patience in a sport built on position and speed, and where the objective is to hold on to both.

So they try to cram themselves into patches of asphalt that aren't big enough for the both of them, and they wreck and they argue, and sometimes they draw fines and penalties from NASCAR. Then the real give and take ensues -- they give their cell phone numbers to a personal assistant or public relations rep, take calls from the guy they wrecked with last weekend, and smooth over the incident so the cycle can start all over again. If only it were that simple on the racetrack.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.