Reader disgusted with biased officiating
Week in and week out NASCAR puts the screws to someone or lets certain people slide by, blatantly breaking the rules. I'll go back to Michigan a few weeks ago with the 88 passing the pace car under yellow or starting the final restart from below the white line on the flat part of the track to improve fuel pickup. The 8 car being allowed to start in front of the 83 car even though the 83 passed the 8 two or three laps earlier before the yellow came out. Or how about the 8 passing under yellow to push the 9 around the track under yellow to help him save fuel.
We can go a few weeks back even further to Charlotte and the Coca-Cola 600 when the 88 got caught speeding on pit road, sped down pit road again and served a stop and go penalty until they eventually left pit road a lap down. When the 88 rejoined the field under yellow he was told to pass the pace car and join the tail end of the longest line back on the lead lap. No explanation from anyone just got his lap back for no reason. Would they do that for anyone else?
The 84 car has been random tear-down (for those that don’t know NASCAR supposedly had the first driver officially out of the race pull a pill out of a bag to see who will be the random inspection) for three weeks in a row, finishing outside of the top 35 in all 3 races. I’m not all that good with math but out of 43 pills in a bag I find the odds very, very high that 84 was drawn that many weeks in a row. Especially when NASCAR has told them in advance that they better plan on tearing down for sometime after an on track motor altercation at Sonoma.
How about the scoring debacle in the Daytona Coke Zero 400 when the crashing 5 car sends numerous cars down pit road, all of which were put behind the cars that stayed on the track even though NASCAR told drivers if they needed to avoid an on track altercation by running down pit road just slow down (for safety reasons of course) and the tapes would be reviewed and they would be returned to where they were in the loop before the wreck. However the 48 and 83 were put back like seven or eight spots for doing exactly what NASCAR told them to do. We won’t even talk about the finish of the race with the finishing order still being decided probably as I am writing this.
The list goes on and on, week in and week out and no one says or does anything. I have hundreds of things I have seen just in a few short years and it gets worse and worse week in and week out and more and more blatant yet the media reports nothing on it. If NASCAR wants to be like wrestling at least let the fans and the crews know that way there is less aggravation and stress involved. If NASCAR wants to predetermine the finishing order, just let everyone know. We all know who the favorites are but at least the racing could be fair on the track. Jerry Dickson