Thoughts during the rain delay for the Coca-Cola 600 (cont'd)

Crime vs. punishment

By now everyone has heard of and chewed on the fact that NASCAR laid down a sledgehammer on driver-owner Carl Long, whose car for the Sprint Showdown was ruled to have an engine that measured roughly one-one thousandth of an inch bigger than is allowed.

The punishment handed down to a team on a shoestring budget by NASCAR for this infraction: a 12-week suspension from the track for Long, who works for other teams when he's not attempting to make a race himself and therefore will take a double-financial hit, and a record $200,000 fine that threatens to put his small operation out of business altogether. Fellow driver Jeff Burton said he understands where NASCAR was coming from when it swung the sledgehammer.

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If you never make people regret doing the wrong thing, they'll never do the right thing. So I'm in favor of big penalties because I think it makes it where people don't want to mess around.

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-- JEFF BURTON

"One of the things that keep people honest is the fact that a car that probably didn't have a chance to win the race was torn down and that their engine was torn down," Burton said. "What that means to a team that doesn't feel like they might have a chance to win but is thinking maybe they can cheat and finish 18th, it tells them don't do that.

"We have seen over the years an escalation in penalties, an escalation in [fine] money -- and big engines are something that NASCAR seems to have no tolerance for. That's a really, really big penalty -- especially for Carl and the financial situation they're in. But you know, tall fences make great neighbors and big rules make people not cheat.

"If you never make people regret doing the wrong thing, they'll never do the right thing. So I'm in favor of big penalties because I think it makes it where people don't want to mess around."

Problem is, Long said in a statement that he bought the engine from a reputable source -- another team that frequently supplies his engines -- and that the engine was so worn out there is no way he gained any kind of advantage anyway. In this case, the punishment clearly does not fit the crime and Long should win his appeal to have the fine and suspension dramatically reduced. If he doesn't, that will be a greater injustice than his seemingly inadvertent attempt to run a marginally bigger engine.

'Nuff said

In this week's version of he said, she said, 'Nuff said ... Bruton Smith and Humpy Wheeler were firing potshots at each other over the weekend.

Humpy was miffed that he wasn't invited to LMS for the festivities surrounding the 50th running of the Coca-Cola 600, which he presided over so magnificently for so many years. Bruton was miffed that Humpy was miffed, saying he wasn't aware that he had to send out invitations to anybody and that Wheeler, the former LMS president, had a NASCAR hard card that can get him into any race Wheeler wants.

Smith, who owns the track Wheeler ran for a quarter-century, didn't stop there, either. He went on to -- again -- stress his point that Wheeler retired of his own volition last year. He said Wheeler came into his office and more or less demanded a $5 million retirement gift, which isn't quite the way Wheeler tells the story.

To be honest, the media has tended to side with Wheeler on this one because, well, he's been so much nicer and easier to deal with over the years. Smith likes to entertain the media on his own terms, which he does with great fanfare four or five times a year. But he just isn't as believable as Humpy, and has a track record of bullying people and even entire communities (remember his threat to close down LMS and move it if city and county officials didn't bow to his demands regarding a certain drag strip he wanted built next to the Concord track?).

The bottom line is that these are two very rich men squabbling over money and their legacies in the history of LMS, both of which are secure and can only be damaged by further petty debates. 'Nuff said on the subject that is now officially more than a year old but is beginning to seem much older.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.