NASCAR has always been a contact sport. The sport rose to national prominence on the bump-and-grind embraced by fans who loved contentious crashes, whether it was man or machine or both.
The epic moment involved the last lap of the 1979 Daytona 500.
Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison collided with each other jockeying for the lead on the back stretch. Neither car fared well, as both spun off the wall and into Daytona’s grass infield. Richard Petty stole a victory and barely had time to celebrate before Yarborough, Donnie Allison and brother Bobby Allison started brawling.
NASCAR officially became a bloodsport, and people liked it.
It’s uncertain whether there will be any brawls Sunday afternoon when Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick emerge from the scrum of the Ford EcoBoost 400. They are the “Championship 4,” part of this new-fangled playoff system in the evolution of NASCAR.
Struggling for eyeballs and relevance, NASCAR has tried to reinvent itself several times by tweaking the playoff format. Despite the groans from traditionalists, the sport got it right this season:
The three most dominant drivers of the 2018 season — and all former champions — are in the mix, coupled with Joey Logano, the ultimate wild card on the track.
It brings us full circle to the contact-sport context. Logano is NASCAR’s version of a pro-wrestling heel in the 2018 edition of NASCAR’s morality play. He has jostled with Truex in Martinsville and Aric Almirola in Texas.
Perhaps Almirola will extract sweet revenge, but the sharper focus is on Truex, who said during Thursday’s four-driver media availability that the rules of engagement will be different with Logano.
“Absolutely,” Truex said. “I have a free pass; he already told me that. Told me it’s fair game, so here we go.”
Logano doesn’t quite see it that way.
“I didn’t tell him that,” Logano said. “I said, ‘Hey, I expect to get raced the way I race people.’ I’m a hard racer. I expect to get raced hard. I said it before: We didn’t crash each other. I didn’t crash him. Moved him up enough to have a drag race. That’s what I explained to him.”
It’s an unpredictable scenario for Sunday but practicality may prevail: If Logano and Truex get caught up in payback shenanigans, they could take each other out, and gift a championship to Busch or Harvick.
One thing seems obvious, or at least ironic: Why is anyone complaining about rough-house tactics in a sport that needs an uptick in terms of interest and competitive juice?
That’s racin’, boys. Embrace it.
“Fans ask for NASCAR drivers to race ‘side by side FOR THE WIN,’ ” Kenny Wallace tweeted after the Logano-Truex dustup. “And they just did. My heart was pounding. GREAT RACE!!”
Exactly.
There’s an interesting juxtaposition here as well. Busch and Harvick are usually the guys engaging in this kind of warfare — on and off the track. And at times with each other.
Harvick moved out Busch to win at New Hampshire earlier this season, although the bump did not take Busch out of the race.
“How you race is how you get raced, so it’s fine,” Busch said after the race.
So consider the dynamics for Sunday NASCAR Bizzaro World:
The normally affable Truex is in the mood to fight. Harvick and Busch are playing kumbaya.
“I haven’t always been very good at channeling my anger,” Harvick said, laughing. “Look, if I was jumping over the hood of a car right now, went into my house, had a six-year-old who saw me trampling, do you know how embarrassed I would be to walk in the front door and answer that question: ‘Hey, Dad, why did you jump over that guy’s car, grab him by the throat?’ Well, probably wasn’t the right thing to do.
“Then it would get more embarrassing as you take him to school, drive through the carpool lines to see his teachers that are all watching as well. Don’t say all the right things; do the right things. As you go through life, I would hope we all mature from a life standpoint to be able to be a better person. I still screw up a lot.”
A ray of hope for Sunday, if you are a fan of the bloodsport dynamics.
