On the long and short of it, NASCAR made correct call (cont'd)

"I think that was an awesome call," said Jeff Gordon, who would have finished deep in the pack had the race been called, but instead placed fifth. "I think NASCAR recognized what is going on in the Chase and what a disaster that was going to be. I think that as long as there is daylight, they are going to race. I am sure there are some guys that disagree with that, but because of the wreck and some of the things that happened, hey, from where I was sitting, there was only one call and that was to go back racing. Certainly, we are glad that they did."

Turns out, Stewart agreed with the call after all. "I think they did the right thing," he said on his weekly radio show. "You look at it from their standpoint, if they call the race we're going to leave Kansas City with a 50- or 60-point lead and that could have been the difference between us stealing a championship away from somebody or not. NASCAR, in my opinion, did exactly the right thing, did everything they could to get it in.

"It's the same thing we would have done at Eldora [Speedway]. And the reason it was the right decision is let us settle it on the racetrack. Let us win the championship on the racetrack. Don't let weather be a determining factor in those last 10 races of who is going to win or not win the championship. It's not fair to let Mother Nature decide who is going to win or not win."

Likewise, the sanctioning body made the right move by waving off any green-white-checkered finish after Juan Montoya's tire shredded to bring out a caution with two laps remaining. Television cameras, equipped with irises that can open wide to let in every last vestige of light, painted a picture much brighter than it really was. In the immediate aftermath of the race, it had grown so dark that TV crews needed lights to film interview footage. An overtime finish is always a calamity waiting to happen, especially on a relatively green racetrack where cars were hammering into one another even in broad daylight. Forcing drivers to endure such a rolling beehive in near-darkness would have been unfair at best, and dangerous at worst.

Eventual third-place finisher Jimmie Johnson, who might have benefited from two additional laps, agreed. "Without a doubt," he said. "It was really tough to see out there."

The folks who work in NASCAR have thick skin. They take plenty of shots, deserved or not, from fans or reporters who seem to take all of this a little too personally. We're not dealing with a presidential election here, but a sports league, and one that's privately owned. NASCAR may open itself to criticism by making judgment calls, but that's no need for viewers to beat their chests and childishly claim they're never watching again. You could say the same thing about Major League Baseball, where Monday a team secured a wild-card berth even though the player scoring the winning run apparently never touched the plate.

Sunday in Kansas City brought a long, wearying afternoon and evening full of storms on the track and off. Some of the judgments made by NASCAR officials over the course of the weekend were debatable. But two of them -- running as much of the race as they could, and ending it when they did -- were not.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.