When it come to speeding, does punishment fit crime? (cont'd)

"It's sort of like a team that's dominated a football game or something, and they step out of bounds on the crucial play that would have gotten them in the end zone," NASCAR chairman Brian France told Sirius satellite radio on Monday. "That's just the way it is."

Well, it is, and it isn't. In many sports, in-game penalties are relatively minor -- two free throws in basketball, 15 yards in football, two minutes in hockey or one stroke in golf. They can also be overcome, especially if the team or athlete in question is playing with an advantage as sizeable as the one Montoya enjoyed at Indianapolis. They can be overcome in racing, too -- Carl Edwards rallied from a speeding penalty to win at Michigan in 2007, and Greg Biffle did the same en route to victory in a Nationwide event at Las Vegas this year -- but only if they happen early enough so that the driver has time to make up the lost ground.

“

I think the penalty is fair. They've got to set up black-and-white marks which you can't go [past]. The problem is our race cars are so equal right now that nobody can pass, so they're trying to get every inch on pit road.

”

-- DENNY HAMLIN

Sunday, Montoya didn't have that luxury. His penalty was akin to a football team having a three-touchdown lead wiped out by a holding call. Comparatively, it seems overly harsh. Montoya's penalty at the Brickyard, and its race-changing results, has sparked something of a debate among casual race fans as to whether the punishment fits the crime. After all, Tiger Woods doesn't lose the U.S. Open if he has a five-shot lead and pulls a tee shot out of bounds.

But that's tantamount to what happened to Montoya. As soon as his No. 42 car tripped the radar gun in the second of eight speeding zones set up along the pit road at Indianapolis, his Brickyard was finished, regardless of the number of laps he had led or the number of seconds by which he had been out front.

Does that seem fair? It's a difficult question to answer, given that auto racing is unlike other sports, and it's tough to come up with alternative penalties to the traditional pass-through and stop-and-go. Plus, according to Denny Hamlin, the fact that Montoya had no chance to win after his speeding violation had less to do with the penalty than it did the race track.

"I think it took him out of the running because of where we were. We weren't at a race track where he could make that up. Indy is the toughest place to pass that we go to on our circuit. With the speeds what they are, it's a one-groove race track. There's no doubt about that. These cars don't have any downforce. When you get behind someone, you just can't go anywhere. It's been proven. You look at the lead changes, probably green-flag passes at Indianapolis, it's less than any other race track. It's just so tough there. But any other race track he wouldn't have been taken out of the race," Hamlin said.

"No matter what you do, if you have a penalty with 30 laps to go, you've made your day right there. If you did it 30 laps into the race, probably still could have made it up and have been a contender for a race win. But it happened so late in the race, no matter what you do, what kind of rule you try to implement. You're going to get taken out. It doesn't matter whether they penalize you five spots, 10 spots, whatever. I think the penalty is fair. They've got to set up black-and-white marks which you can't go [past]. The problem is our race cars are so equal right now that nobody can pass, so they're trying to get every inch on pit road that they can to maybe beat one guy out of pit lane."

Yes, Montoya was flirting with the speed limit when he came in for his final stop. But all drivers do that. They're conditioned to getting everything they can out of their race cars, on pit road as well as on the race track. If they're going too slow, playing it overly cautious as many believe Montoya should have been Sunday, they're going to pay for it. Drivers and teams make a practice of finding out where that pit-road limit is and coming in right on top of it, as well they should. Anything else would be like asking a fast-break basketball team to milk the clock, or a pursuing football defense to sit back in a prevent. Those are the kinds of things that eventually get you beat.

"I understand why he was pushing the limit," Hamlin said. "You always have to push the limit, because we're trying to get everything we can. Because on the race track, we can only do so much. We don't have a car that can pass really well right now at that race track. But I think it's getting better. NASCAR is definitely looking at what they can do to make it better, and eventually it's going to be better than what it was. When you have a penalty that late in the race, you choose your own fate."

In a sport with harsh penalties for pit-road speeding violators, that certainly seemed to be the case on Sunday. And as for those green dashboard lights that gave Montoya such a false sense of security at the Brickyard? No one would be surprised if they're recalibrated before Sunday's event at Pocono Raceway.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.