Nascar Sprint Federated Autoparts 400 at Richmond Int Raceway Sat, Sep 7 on ABC 5:30 PM ET

Nascar ^

[ican'tbelieveit]

Gordon out. Bummer.

[ican'tbelieveit]

Controversy. Carl beat Menard lo the line and Nascar didn’t do anything.

[eyedigress]

RR lost some spots tonite. Dang

[MtnClimber]

Losing spots is not the big thing, it is the loss in prize money!

[Political Junkie Too]

Now they're accusing Bowyer of purposely spinning the car to force the caution. Commentators being blunt about it, calling it unethical and personally dissappointing about Bowyer and Michael Waltrip Racing.

-PJ

[ican'tbelieveit]

I didn’t see a closeup replay, but it looked like a car behind him got him loose.

[Political Junkie Too]

They talked about the radio transmissions, the in-car camera showing his hand movements on the wheel, the engine sounds and brake telemetry, and Junior was behind him and saw the car's movements.

They said it was all about getting his teammate into the chase.

-PJ

[happydogx2]

Auto Racing is the only sport I can think of where a driver can participate and get paid in multiple levels of competition. I wonder what the stats are, if only 10% to 15% of the drivers in a Nationwide or Truck race are Sprint Cup drivers, of the percentage of wins by those (Sprint Cup) drivers in those races.

Ringers are an excepted common occurrence at (Sprint Cup) road course races. I’m certainly against more regulation but the involvement of who in what in auto racing seems a bit convoluted to me.

[happydogx2]

Went out for a country drive yesterday in the ‘335 and really mashed the pedal for the first time since I owned the car. Holy Poo, Batman. Incredible. I’ve never experienced that before.

[Abigail Adams]

Here’s a video about the controversy. Junior’s comments are especially funny:

http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/videos/2013/9/8/sprint-cup-series-richmond-bowyers-late-caution-reactions.html

[eyedigress]

I’m going to Walmart when this season is over!

[Abigail Adams]

An opinion piece on Bowyer’s spin:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/obvious-clint-bowyer-spun-purpose-teammate-chase-nascar-161400628—nascar.html

[B4Ranch]

I am sure there must be some rhyme or reason why they allow ‘more skilled’ drivers to drive in the lower skill races. I suspect that it had to do with $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for the race track owners. The cities probably encourage it because it means more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for them in taxes. So, like most things it boils down to $$$$$$$$$$$.

[eyedigress]

I hope you understand how much money rides on these races.

I picked Gordon and Old Shrub. I’m in the clear.

If they can’t prove Boyer did anything, the Newman team needs to shut the hell up.

[Political Junkie Too]

I was thinking about what kind of punishment NASCAR could mete out last night. Along with the intentional spin-out is the restart, where the 2nd-place car beat the leader to the line and NASCAR didn't flag him.

The problem for NASCAR is obvious - how is this different than point-shaving in basketball, taking a dive in boxing, or dropping fly balls, over-throwing basemen, or intentionally striking out like the Black Sox?

I'd say that given the extraordinary importance of this race to the chase, NASCAR should penalize Bowyer enough points to drop him from the chase, and then disqualify last night's race entirely. Everybody's points are reset to where they were last week, except Bowyer who is penalized.

Make next week's race the final qualifier for the chase, and reduce the chase by one race.

It's the only way for NASCAR to retain credibility, and provide enough punitive punishment to prevent this from happening again.

-PJ

[eyedigress]

Whut? Last nights race made me 100 gazillion internet dollars.

[vox_freedom]

I agree with you assessment along with the suggested remedy.

[tubebender]

I wasn’t paying close attention at the time of the spin and had the TV muted when Truex got out of his car for the cameras but I noticed Mikey W was distracted and had a concerned look on his face instead of being jubilant with the finish. Can someone pull that clip up and look at it?

[B4Ranch]

I think he’s guilty but that’s just me and my vote.

[B4Ranch]

I don’t particularly like Newman but then again I’m not a Boyer fan either. However Boyer didn’t resist the accusation as strongly as I would have if I was innocent.