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Sadly, complaining has
become a way of life in the Winston Cup arena which means its like
Chicken Little crying the sky is falling. Few listen when it really
counts.
Convinced it was impossible to be beaten by a legal car, Rusty
Wallace loudly proclaimed several of the top Chevrolet teams had
been cheating at Daytona. Wallace went one step further saying
NASCAR officials were aware they had been hoodwinked and would cast
a keener eye towards those teams by the time the schedule brought
the show to Talladega Superspeedway.
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Rusty Wallace
Photo: by Ford |
What could have been a
"huge" story turned into a footnote because most that know Wallace
know that his mentality was the footing for his comments. "If he
gets beat," said one former member of Penske South, "The first thing
he thinks is the other person must have been cheating. Its good to
believe your that good, but its going to get in your way if you can
see that others can be just as good."
One week later Wallace
is backpedaling from his "cheating" comments. Maybe that's because
he dominated two-thirds of the Subway 400, falling from the lead
after his team failed to keep up with the changing track surface.
Wallace is not alone in putting his mouth in gear before his brain.
Nearly every driver exiting his racecar after an on-track incident
makes some kind of statement that lacks the backing of the truth.
Anger will do that to a person and is far easier to forgive than the
ramblings of a driver dissatisfied because he got beat to the
checkered flag.
However, drivers are not alone. The media is equally quick to jump
to conclusions.
Its all part of our every shrinking, running at light speed world
that at times seems more like a runaway roller coaster, instead of a
high-speed train into the future.
The season is only two weeks old and already the patterns are set.
It would be nice if we could all just take a breather, but alas the
schedule doesn't allow for such a moment until after Martinsville,
April 14th to be exact. Until then, it would be nice if before the
mouth is shifted into gear we give the brain a few minutes to get up
to full speed.
It is time to think about patience being a virtue. Nothing could be
truer as the circuit rolls through the downforce dependent tracks of
Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway and Darlington
Speedway. Which is in itself ironic. Three weeks of thrashing and
frustration followed by 500 laps at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The author can be contacted
stanc@autoracing1.com
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