May 24, 2006

By Rebecca Gladden

Rebecca Gladden

Sometimes being a writer involves taking a risk, particularly when you know that the opinion you are about to voice is on the wrong side of popular sentiment.

So let me preface this column by unequivocally stating the following:

I respect and admire Kyle Petty.

I wholeheartedly support the Victory Junction Gang Camp.

I was thrilled that Kyle won the fan vote for the All-Star race.

And like most of you, I got goose bumps when Kyle walked across the stage during driver introductions Saturday night, holding a child who represented all the Victory Junction campers that Petty has helped and will continue to help in the future.

That said, I must admit that I am concerned with the precedent that was set by Petty's sponsor, Coca-Cola, with this year's "Vote Kyle, Reward Victory Junction" All-Star voting campaign.

The plan was simple enough. One driver among those not otherwise eligible for the All-Star Challenge would be voted into the race by the fans. In early May, Coca-Cola and other Petty Enterprises sponsors, including Wells Fargo, Schwan's, and Tire Kingdom, announced that they would donate a minimum of $250,000 to the Victory Junction Gang Camp if Kyle won the fan vote for the race.

Additionally, Kyle and Petty Enterprises stated that they would donate any purse money won in the All-Star Challenge to the camp - up to $1 million if the No. 45 car was voted in and won the race.

The "Vote Kyle, Reward Victory Junction" campaign launched a web site, VoteKylePetty.com, to promote the initiative, and included a button linking the site to the voting page at NASCAR.com. Fellow Cup driver Michael Waltrip served as Petty's campaign manager, and other drivers including Tony Stewart, Bobby Labonte, Mark Martin and Carl Edwards supported the operation.

Word of the Petty voting campaign spread like wildfire across internet chat rooms and message boards. Many fans admitted to casting hundreds, if not thousands, of votes for Petty, expressing a shared sense of relief that this year's All-Star voting would be more than just another popularity contest. This time, a truly deserving driver would win.

No argument here.

But my concern with the Coca-Cola initiative is the precedent that it might set for future All-Star voting campaigns.

When my oldest son was in first grade, he had been reprimanded by his teacher for what seemed to be a fairly innocuous act - tapping his pencil on his desk. When I asked the teacher why he had gotten in trouble for this, she replied with what I later learned was a standard principle that school teachers apply to judge the seriousness of a student's actions: "What if everyone in the class did what you were doing right now?"

In a classroom full of 30-plus students, one child tapping his pencil on the desk could probably be overlooked. But if the teacher had permitted my son to get away with this behavior, she would have set a precedent that other students could take advantage of, and then she would have been faced with a room full of disruptive pencil tappers.

In the school setting, this precept applies to all sorts of student misdeeds - talking in line, getting out of your seat, even asking to use the restroom too often. The teacher has to establish the precedent for behavior from the onset in order to avoid abuse of the rules down the road.

And that is where my apprehension lies with respect to future All-Star voting: What if everyone's sponsor does what Coca-Cola did with the Kyle Petty campaign this year?

Many drivers at the Cup level have charitable foundations, or serve as spokesmen or fundraisers for some very worthy causes.

With the obvious success of the Petty voting initiative this year, it is conceivable that a number of other sponsors and drivers will tie the fan vote into fundraising efforts next year and into the future. Will we then see the fan vote transformed into a competition not among drivers, but among causes, in which fans will be forced to choose which of many deserving organizations to support with their votes?

An argument could be made that such an approach would be better than a vote based on driver popularity alone.

But any time an attempt is made to influence voters by a tie-in with financial reward - even when the motives are completely altruistic - it has the potential to tarnish the fundamental nature of the voting process.

I do not begrudge Kyle Petty or the Victory Junction Gang Camp one penny that was raised in conjunction with this year's All-Star voting.

But I do think the precedent set by the "Vote Kyle, Reward Victory Junction" campaign deserves closer inspection before next year's All-Star voting season begins.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN. Although we may not always agree with what is said, we do feel it's our duty to give a voice to those who have something relevant to say about the sport of auto racing.