October 1, 2003

con·spir·a·cy

(1) An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
(2) A group of conspirators.
(3) Law: An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
(4) A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.


This is the definition I found in my good old Funk & Wagnalls. A lot of people think that NASCAR is a hotbed of conspiracies and is headed by a group of sinister conspirators, for the most part being named France. What a laugh?

Why would anyone in their right mind find anything conspiratorial in anything NASCAR has ever done? Gee, it's a mystery to me. The France family and NASCAR have always been above board, honest, truthful, fair, even handed, and always stayed right by the rule book in any decision made by them.

Take for instance this past week at Talladega, they enforced the minimum height limit to the max. And woe be to anyone that violates it in the least! They showed DEI and that bunch in ARCA about cheating! Boy, these NASCAR guys don't let anything get by them!

Have you ever thought how much advantage DEI cars got by that 1/16 of an inch? Gee, I'll bet that added almost .0001 MPH to the DEI cars, what an advantage, it might even have moved Jr. up to 10th. You go NASCAR, give those flagrant cheaters a what for.

Why stop with just sending them to the back? Ban those crooks for life, fine them millions, tie them to the mizzen mast and give them 50 lashes, kill their firstborn children, or just shoot them at sunrise. That will certainly send the appropriate message to the others.

You have to keep the peons in line or they will soon think that they need to make suggestions about their own safety and well being, not to mention the pittances you pay out while your family is in the upper half of the Fortune 500. Who do they think they are?

Oh, as for the conspiracy, DEI didn't play fair. They got up front and nearly did something no one else has done. We can't have that. Next time force them to add 100 pounds of lead to the top of the car. That will surely do the trick. Or, if that doesn't work, just make them leave the track and not run.

I'm sure the fans won't mind this a bit. After all, they don't care who is on the track. They don't know anything worth your time. After all the only thing they are worth is the money they drop at your venues.

Fans, who needs them? We do have television after all!

Oh, 1/16 of an inch, how much is 1/16 of an inch in reality. 1/16 of an inch is about the length of this hyphen -. Dang that is a whole lot. I'll bet that that is about enough of a length of gold wire 1 inch in diameter to buy a "Thickburger" at Hardee's, enough to buy a "Get Out of Jail" card in a Monopoly game, enough to buy 1 minute at "Miss Emma's House of Earthly Delights," or it might be enough to buy a whole lot of paranoia about who gets chosen to carry the stigma of "Cheater" after the car has already passed inspection once.

1/16 of an inch, how much is it? The better question is "Is 1/16 of an inch enough to risk your credibility to a racing public already thinking that the only two professional sports organizations, where the rule book changes from week to week are NASCAR and the WWE."

My isn't NASCAR in good company?

Oh by the way, I'm not a DEI fan. All my race favorites are either retired or dead. I just don't want to add any more good brave men to the latter group and I don't want to see NASCAR become any more boring or deadly.

NASCAR, get your heads out of the darkness that follows you around all your lives! Make it a real monetary slap in the pocketbook when you catch someone flagrantly disobeying the rules, what ever they are this week, and let 1/16 of an inch go for a lesser amount. But whatever you do, be consistent.

You can send feedback to Rob at: Insider Racing News