Holding A Pretty Wheel

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. knew he didn’t feel right. Struggling with headaches in the days following a multicar crash at Talladega, Earnhardt finally had to admit that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the aches and pains a driver can feel for a few days after a hard hit, and deep down, Earnhardt knew it. “I knew that I didn’t feel (right)—you know your body and you know how your mind works, and I knew something was not quite right,” Earnhardt said on Thursday. The lingering headaches prompted Earnhardt to contact Dr. Jerry Petty, a Charlotte neurosurgeon who has worked with numerous athletes, including other drivers.

Teams continued testing of the 2013 Sprint Cup cars this week at Talladega Superspeedway and with it some optimism amid reports that NASCAR will allow race teams some test sessions at sanctioned tracks and that the sanctioning body is considering allowing teams some areas to work on the cars and dropping the controversial rule that locks the top 35 team in owners’ points into each race. All of these are very positive changes for NASCAR, and hopefully, race fans will respond by watching races on TV or in person, if for no other reason than to see if changes will make the competition more exciting, which is certainly something people are always hoping for.

For NASCAR, this is a big deal. A lot hinges on fans responding favorably to changes, possibly more than many casual fans realize. And in some ways, 2013 could be a defining season for the future of NASCAR.

Look at the headlines this week, and you might think they tell the story of the early weeks of this year’s Chase. First Brad Keselowski and then Denny Hamlin grabbed attention for their winning efforts at Chicago and New Hampshire, respectively, and each was touted as the title favorite after the victory. And then, of course, there’s Jimmie Johnson, the five-time Chase champion who is the overwhelming favorite to win this weekend at Dover and who also happens to have the points lead.

And then there are the drivers on the opposite end of the spectrum: Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick…and the speculation about what has gone wrong, why they’re done and why they think they’re not. Throw in a couple of props to the Michael Waltrip Racing team and how they’ve flown in under the radar and are poised to make the team one of NASCAR’s elite. That about sums it up, right?

=NASCAR needs a villain. Those are words that have echoed around the sport over the last few years. Really, we’ve heard them since the death of Dale Earnhardt, but it seems like they’ve gotten louder in recent years. NASCAR needs a bad boy, one who will be unabashedly aggressive on the track and proud of it off the track. One who knows how to use the ol’ chrome horn once in a while, one who will knock you into next week and then blame you for it. Yes, people say, that is just what we need. Except it isn’t.

What NASCAR really needs, even more than a villain to play the spoiler, is a real, honest-to-goodness blue-collar hero.

Hot or cold. Wet or dry. High or low. Good or bad. There are plenty of extremes we apply to NASCAR racing—and to the rest of our lives–every week. Often, it is an “either / or” situation: the track is either wet or it’s dry. A team either qualifies or goes home. You either win or you don’t.

But not everything is one or the other…often, the truth lies somewhere between.

It seems like many people in the sport, from drivers to fans, forget that there is middle ground. To be fair, it’s not limited to NASCAR or even sports; one simply has to view a few political ads to realize that candidates like to make it a game of extremes when perhaps they ought to be appealing to a more moderate audience. Whatever the case, it appears that in this sport, we love extremes.

As the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour heads to Michigan International Speedway this weekend, plenty of attention will be focused on the new tire that teams will race there, replacing the ones that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won convincingly on in June. Earnhardt, Jr. himself will be another focus of fans and media as he tries to grab another win to boost his Chase position. Earnhardt is also in position, should he get lucky, to clinch his Chase berth this week. In fact, he’s one of five who can seal the deal. Anyone who can nail down a spot early is dangerous simply because it gives those teams two or three weeks where they can go for broke every race in an attempt to gain the ever important bonus points that come with wins. But is simply getting assured of a spot early a guarantee of Chase success?