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BRISTOL, Tenn. -- In the wee hours of Sunday, Bristol Motor Speedway president Jeff Byrd drove through the emptying parking lots in a golf cart, apologizing to people.

Sadly for the image of Byrd's notorious domain, not a single outrage had occurred during Saturday night's Sharpie 500. Not a single driver had left here furious. (Oh, Jeff Gordon was miffed for a moment at Scott Riggs, but got over it too quickly to make a real Bristol-esque show of it.)

There would be no suspense this week waiting to see whether NASCAR would issue penalties for bad behavior.

[snip]

The crowd of 160,000-plus -- the 49th straight sellout here, purely due to the magnetism of melees -- had filed out unfulfilled. They hadn't seen enough of the fury that makes Bristol's night race the toughest ticket in NASCAR. "It happens to us," Byrd said dejectedly, "about once every 10 years."

[snip]

It could have gotten nasty near the end, but the key to good behavior may have been Dale Earnhardt Jr., who settled rationally and calmly for third place rather than trying to overdrive his sometimes-fitful Chevrolet into a fight with Kenseth for the win or even Kyle Busch for second.

And Earnhardt's rationale included a word that could be devastating to Bristol's wild reputation: respect. "With the Chase [imminent after two more races] and everybody being so close [in the standings], there was a lot more respect out there on the track tonight," Earnhardt said. "A lot more than you've seen in the past."

Uh-oh.

Respect was the one human element that had been flouted and stomped on for decades at Bristol. Why, if drivers respect one another here, then how are they to continue stuffing one another into the wall, with the victim usually retaliating within a few laps? How are they to stand amid their wreckage and make raging, sometimes obscene, gestures?

"When I caught guys, they moved over," Earnhardt said.

Oh, no.

"And I did the same for others."

Ouch.

"You don't normally see that here."

No kidding.

"He let me go," Busch said of their late encounter, "so I didn't have to waste much time on him or use a front bumper . . " And then, Busch said, he "never could get to" Kenseth. That, Busch concluded, was probably for the best.

[snip]

Of the top five finishers here, four ? Kenseth, Busch, Earnhardt and Gordon ? are all in the Top 10 which is the cutoff point for the Chase. Kenseth clinched a berth Saturday night, but the other three mainly wanted to make sure they didn't knock themselves out of contention by indulging their tempers and aggressiveness here.

Then again, Earnhardt reckoned, "I don't know if anybody is on any better behavior. I guess opportunities didn't arise for some of those guys to get into trouble."

So maybe there is hope for Bristol's hot August night after all.

Link: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/motorracing/orl-nascar2806aug28,0,7457578.story?coll=orl-sports-headlines-motorrace