It sounds so simple -- just be yourself.

That's what NASCAR wants its top drivers to do, a point executives within the sanctioning body further drove home a few weeks ago by loosening rules relating to on-track conduct. Petty run-ins no longer necessitate the feared call to the NASCAR hauler. Well aware that ratings and attendance numbers have taken a dip, NASCAR is trying to encourage drivers to let their true personalities show, in the hopes that those in the fan base won't perceive competitors to be as vanilla as they do now.

What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. NASCAR over time has steadily backed away from a once-heavy-handed approach to policing the sport, to the point where it essentially allowed things like the year-end Nationwide feud between Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin to play itself out. "I honestly believe that the visits to the Sprint Cup hauler for the last couple of seasons have been less than it's been in the past," NASCAR president Mike Helton said recently, and he's probably right. No, they're not going to let guys start slugging each other. But if it doesn't compromise safety, and it doesn't impact the championship picture, these days NASCAR seems more apt to let it go.

And yet, on this subject, NASCAR has only so much control. Goodness, it seems like such an easy task, to loosen up, to be more colorful, to act at the race track and before the cameras more like you act at home with family and friends. That's what fans want to see, what reporters want to write about, what NASCAR wants to foster. But because of their ties to corporate sponsors, competitors can show so much.

"I don't think it's NASCAR that's kept us all from being ourselves as much as it is we have to be so conscious of our sponsors," said Tony Stewart, who became a team owner last year. "I think that's more of what's held everybody back verses NASCAR. NASCAR has let us be ourselves, and let us have our personalities. It's corporate America. We're not going against corporate America, obviously, but you realize why we have to be in the shell a little bit, so to speak. Other pro sports don't have corporate sponsors on their uniforms and on their cars. That's why our sport is a little different from other sports."

Actually, athletes in other pro sports, soccer and golf especially, do wear corporate logos on their playing gear. But like golfers, drivers become so closely intertwined with their sponsors that they essentially become their representatives, as much so as if they actually worked for the company. If those companies like to push the edge a little, they'll allow their drivers more rope. But if they're conservative, wary of anything that might reflect poorly upon them, then drivers have to walk a very narrow line. Tiger Woods stands as an example of an athlete closely tied to sponsors who let his true personality show -- accidentally, in this case. And we all know how the companies he represented, several of which have dropped him, felt about that. (Continued)