Hitting to all fields: Final thoughts on Richmond (cont'd)

One-way KB?

I was writing about the less than three laps Kyle Busch and Earnhardt got to race before they crashed in the effort. I don't know what anyone thought, but I figured they were going to race as hard as each of them could to try to win.

If they made a mistake, oh well. They were trying -- both of them were. They could have done a lot of things differently, but at the moment, they were trying as hard as they could.

What they did the 395 laps or so before that was irrelevant to the lap they were on. I thought the run Earnhardt got off Turn 2 was absolutely amazing, because I also thought that Busch had him beat when they ran through 1 and 2.

Junior made Busch run as hard as he did into Turn 3 and Busch made the decision not to give up; you saw the outcome.

I bet very few readers have ever felt the left-to-right weight transfer over the centerline of your vehicle at 100 miles an hour or so -- but it's a wonderful thing you feel in the seat of your pants.

These guys were going almost half-again that fast and I believed Saturday night, and Busch confirmed it again Monday afternoon, that he had to turn right to save his car. Again, the Junior conspiracy theorists want to believe Busch turned into their boy to wreck him. But wrecking him obviously would put Busch winning the race at risk and he wanted to win, not wreck.

As far as where he was and what he knew would happen -- so what? That's racing. I'll never forget the Daytona IROC race in which Al Unser Jr., one of the greatest open-wheel drivers of all time who certainly held his own in his IROC forays, moved up on Dale Earnhardt at the end of the backstretch.

Big E had to be laughing his ass off in his car, because he didn't lift, he held his wheel straight because he knew that Unser was going to turn himself into the wall when he hit Dale's left front fender, and sure enough, that's what happened.

Different color cars, different venue, but the same scenario -- and you have no expectation that competitive drivers would do any less in trying to win. At least, winning race drivers wouldn't.

But that takes me to the point of one-way Kyle. Only time will tell if he ever comes close to reaching any marks achieved by Dale Earnhardt; but one thing I, along with many other people have noticed is that what's OK for him certainly isn't OK for anyone else to do to him.

That was chapter and verse that was written by Big E, if you remember, in particular the lovely move Jeremy Mayfield pulled on him at Pocono -- or my all-time favorite racing clip of all-time, from North Wilkesboro in 1989, when Earnhardt gave away, in my opinion, what would have been his tie-breaking eighth championship.

Near the end of the race, Earnhardt was racing Ricky Rudd for the win, with Geoff Bodine in third. Rudd maybe had a marginally faster car and Earnhardt left him the slightest crack on the bottom heading into Turn 1 and Rudd stuck his car in there.

Rather than hold his line and settle into second, Earnhardt tried to shut the door, Rudd didn't lift and they both spun, letting Bodine through to win; and Rusty Wallace to move higher into the top 10 and shave points off Earnhardt's lead.

Sapped of a certain amount of momentum, Wallace eventually overcame Earnhardt and won his only Cup Series championship -- but it was Dick Berggren's attempt at a post-race interview with Earnhardt that was a classic.

Asked by Berggren "what happened," Earnhardt, with his trademark schoolboy smirk, said Rudd had driven down into the corner and "knocked the [expletive] out of me.

"They ought to suspend that son of a [expletive]!"

It is an example of how Big E never bought into the "what goes around comes around" aspect of on-track punishment he was so fond of delivering.

And Busch the younger, as he's displayed many times, shows the same unbalanced behavior. Nashville was a great example. Busch made the mistake that cost him the win, but after the race he refused to properly address his failure.

Friday night's Nationwide fracas with Steve Wallace might have been initiated by Wallace, but Busch immediately settled it by returning the favor and retaking "his" spot. That should have been the end of it -- but by going to confront Wallace, he removed his right to expect anything less than the helmet shaking the boy gave him.

If Busch ever learns to balance his emotions, not only will he continue to be a force on the racetrack, he'll also gain in the court of public opinion.

Fanning the flames

If anyone's a fan of the original Frankenstein movie, you can't forget the scene in which the villagers, armed en masse with torches, chased down the good doctor's "monster" with the intent of causing his demise.

Well, I have it from good sources that the scene post-race at Richmond on Saturday night resembled that, sans torches.

I'm truly sorry the FOX cameras missed the display of middle fingers that my boys told me resembled "the wave" as Busch made his way around the track under caution. That would have been a sight.

I think I understand passion, but I don't think I can fathom, as your guy gets whacked out of the way and potentially out of Victory Lane, taking several hundred dollars worth of scanner equipment and headphones and rearranging them into a dozen pieces on the ground.

And I'm mostly glad Kyle Busch gear was in short supply as the crowd made its way out of the stadium, as my boys told me the mob was actively seeking and speaking their intent of laying waste to any "M&M's fans" they might come across.

And since it was inanimate, the funniest had to be the guys who relieved a nearby convenience store of a Kyle Busch cardboard stand-up, then proceeded to stomp it in the parking lot, before announcing they were "taking it back to camp to find a bonfire."

Ah, passion.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.