After examining the chain of events following last Sunday’s rollbar-padding debacle at Atlanta, the biggest question that comes to my mind is; how stupid do you have to be to get an executive-level job with NASCAR?
On Sunday and into Monday, NASCAR ruled that NBC’s video footage of “a very large piece of something black and round” which appeared to come from Robby Gordon‘s racecar was “inconclusive.”
“If [Gordon] did it, he did it. But looking at the video, it was inconclusive to the point we could not react to it,” said NASCAR spokesman Herb Branham.
Since video evidence was ruled as inconclusive, NASCAR, quite wisely I might add, ordered a post-race inspection of all the cars as they were being loaded onto the haulers, even though they were less than optimistic about catching a culprit.
“We’ll be going through every car as they load them, but that’s not to say it might not have been under somebody’s seat,” said Nextel Cup tour director, John Darby.
As expected, no such evidence was found.
“As is the case after any race, we looked at a number of cars, including Robby Gordon’s,” spokesman Kerry Tharp said Monday. “Although we didn’t find anything suspicious with the car at the time, we are continuing to review and discuss this situation.”
Meanwhile, during what can only be described as the best imitation of Bill Clinton since Bill himself, Gordon looked directly into the camera and emphatically stated; “I definitely did not throw anything out of the window.” Only a finger waggle could have made it better.
By Tuesday, after having ruled the video footage inconclusive and with no physical evidence to be found, NASCAR doggedly vowed to continue to gather information.
“What we saw at the time was debris on the racetrack, and for safety reasons, the caution came out,” Tharp said. “We’re gathering all the information we can and we’ll make a determination based upon what conclusions we are able to draw from that.”
It is said that a lot of strange things tend to happen on Halloween night, and apparently, NASCAR headquarters has no special immunity, for lo and behold, much like the debris that has plagued many a NASCAR race, “mystery evidence” has suddenly surfaced!
Wednesday comes around and NASCAR announces that Gordon will be fined $15,000, docked 50 driver and owner points and placed on double secret NASCAR probation until Dec. 31! The evidence that suddenly surfaced to seal Robby’s fate may never be known.
Being of sound mind, I can only assume that after hours of watching the “inconclusive” video footage, a whole room of NASCAR executives were suddenly stricken by a rare plague of common sense, slapped their heads in unison and said; “Oh! I can see it clearly now! Yes, that is definitely conclusive video footage!” After which, they congratulated each other on a job well done and proceeded to smoke the finest cigars that could be found in Brian’s office. Either that or Gordon suddenly found Jesus and decided to confess. Those of us in the real world will never know.
If you want an answer to the question of “how stupid do you have to be to get an executive level job with NASCAR?” look no further than Robby Gordon! A man who thought he could throw a very large piece of something black and round onto a racetrack on national TV and get away with it! NASCAR is probably fixing up an office for him now.
Stay off the wall,
Jeff
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