On the long and short of it, NASCAR made correct call

The lightning was severe enough to drive spectators underneath the grandstands, the thunder loud enough to be felt inside the bunker-like infield media center, the rain so hard that viewers could hear it pounding down though the television. Cars were wrecked and ripped apart like the chariots in Ben Hur. The entire thing had such an epic cinematic quality to it, right down to a confusing finish in dying daylight, that it could have been directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

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For NASCAR it was the culmination of an eventful but ultimately trying weekend at Kansas Speedway, one that left the hopes of several championship contenders in ruins and the sanctioning body fending off arrows on a variety of fronts. Jack Roush railed against the penalty assessed to his No. 99 car days earlier. Fans complained about the rain-delay-induced, mid-race switch from network to cable (even though no TV exec on the planet is going to sacrifice Sunday prime-time programming). Reporters questioned how Tony Stewart got away with dropping an F-bomb on live television, and how Greg Biffle won the race despite crossing the finish line fourth.

Even for a sport where controversy and criticism are weekly occurrences, this was a lot to deal with. But lost in that cacophony were two things that NASCAR, adhering to its basic tenets of competition and safety, did absolutely right. With championship points in the balance, NASCAR was correct in restarting the race after the two-hour rain delay, and running as much of it as it could. And given all the automotive carnage that had been left behind already, it was also correct in scrapping a green-white-checkered finish because it was too dark to see.

Of course, Tony Stewart -- who stayed out during the pit sequence that unfolded as rain fell, coasted to the red flag on fumes, and would have been the Chase for the Nextel Cup leader had it all ended right there -- might certainly disagree. The storm to follow was a bad one, prompting warnings in the greater Kansas City area and dropping a torrential amount of rain on the racetrack. But on the radar screen, it was also thin. NASCAR officials knew it would pass with plenty of daylight remaining. Service vehicles and jet dryers were out and moving even before the final drops had fallen, a sure sign that NASCAR had every intention of resuming the event.

As well it should have. NASCAR's revamped playoff system, with 12 drivers competing in 10 events under a points structure that's been artificially narrowed, is designed to heighten drama and interest. At the same time, its condensed format allows participants precious little time to make up or lose ground. Every lap counts -- the saying may have been reduced to a television slogan, but it's a truism in the Chase, where there are only 3,233 to work with. Sure, there was plenty of controversy over who won the race. But imagine the furor if NASCAR had called it during the second rain delay, which came in the middle of green-flag stops that buried 10 of 12 Chasers deep in the field, and was followed by two hours of clear, blue sky.

Instead, NASCAR allowed things to be determined on the racetrack, just as they should have been. There was no way officials were going to complete the full race distance. But they owed it to fans and drivers, especially those in the championship hunt, to run as much of it as daylight would allow.

"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.