I don’t watch a lot of NASCAR – the difference in time zones between Australia’s east coast and the US usually lands the races on our TVs at around 4am.
As I don’t watch a huge amount, I don’t know a huge amount about NASCAR. However, one thing I have noticed is that in recent years whenever something controversial or dangerous happens, it seems to involve one man.
Here is his latest effort:
As a result, Busch was parked immediately in this race, and for the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races this weekend.
It actually reminds me of a similar incident that occurred in V8 Supercars in 2002 between Paul Romano and Rodney Forbes.
Forbes had punted Romano heading into Honda Corner at Phillip Island in what appeared to be a fairly standard braking incident. Romano however, took it into his own hands to “pay back” Forbes for the incident.
Romano’s penalty was 150 point championship points – certainly the largest I can remember before or since. It also left him with the dubious honour of being the only driver in championship history to finish on negative points.
He made only a small handful of appearances in the series ever again.
Kyle Busch might not be blown out of the NASCAR series just yet, but hot-headed revenge acts have no place in a sport like motor racing.
Given the recent deaths of Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli, safety should be first and foremost in everyone’s mind.
And this was just dumb and dangerous – no matter however Busch wants to spin it.