By John Berti

Is NASCAR really interested in stopping drivers from wrecking each other? Probably not as I think in secret they are rubbing their greedy little hands together relishing the sale of even more tickets to the fans and thoughts of higher TV ratings.

Keep in mind, though, that this is allegedly one of the top forms of racing, the quality of the racing of late hasn’t been indicative of that.

Let’s take a look at the latest fiasco just this past Sunday. Tony Stewart gets ticked off with Clint Bowyer so what does he do? Quite simply he comes down on Bowyer and crashes into him. The contact brought Bowyer down into Carl Edwards. Stewart’s knucklehead move just may have cost Edwards any shot he may have had at making the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

After the race both Edwards and Bowyer wanted to beat up Stewart. Sounds more like the stuff World Wrestling Entertainment is made up of. Maybe NASCAR should install Vince McMahon as the new race director.

One may ask if Stewart really intended to wreck two cars. I hope not, but he’s the only one that can give us the answer. Knowing Tony’s "It’s all about me” mentality he problem thinks that’s good, one less strong contender to worry about".

To my way of thinking he should have been black flagged and sent home with no points and no prize money. NASCAR thinking allowed Stewart to finish the race garnering a seventh place finish which vaulted him back in the top 10 at the expense of Edwards who finished 39th and Bowyer who was 41st.

Before you get on my case about picking on Tony let me say I realize he isn’t the first guy to intentionally wreck a fellow competitor. Just the week before Tony was the victim when he was wrecked at Loudon by Ryan Newman. My position is that no matter who it is NASCAR should take decisive action to stop it once and for all. Everyone should be held accountable.

NASCAR is always shooting their mouths off about how they are going to get tough with the competitors. Yea, right! How about backing up your words with decisive action. Seeing as this is an off week from Nextel Cup racing it would make the ideal time to announce a new rule stating that if you wreck someone you're done for the day, no points, and no money. I've preached a similar rule when race teams could not pass post race tech inspections in a past article.

NASCAR has a week to form a panel of judges, so to speak. I’d say either 3 or 5 judges would suffice (its got to be an odd number). The judges view the incident on video replay. If the majority feels the move that triggered the accident was uncalled for the guilty driver gets disqualified and goes home. No money, no points.

Not all wrecks are going to be intentional, just "racing deals". What I want stopped is the intentional stuff. If there is intent then the guy should get the boot.

Will that ever happen? I doubt it!

In a recent conversation I had with FASCAR Sunbelt Super Late Model star Wayne Anderson he said, "If you needlessly get wrecked out of a race the team that wrecked you should have to repair your car at their expense. If that was done there would be less wrecking." That doesn’t sound like a bad idea either.

In summation, all I’ve got to say is action is long overdue.


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