October 9, 2009
NASCAR Not Drug Free Before the Race at California
(Different Kind of Apartheid, Truth Behind the Start Time Change)
By Dennis Michelsen
Wednesday night on the QUICK CHANGE radio show on RaceTalkRadio.com there was a discussion about the upcoming race and past events at California Speedway. Lori Munro mentioned that Kelsey Grammer the Grand Marshall for the event had his mug shot on "The Smoking Gun." NASCAR has done the right thing by trying to make the sport drug free! Maybe the next step is to have the tracks do a simple search for mug shots before they invite celebrities to take part in the pre-race. Kelsey Grammer has had multiple arrests for driving under the influence. He was even accused of statutory rape back in the mid 90s but that case was dropped due to a lack of evidence. Supposedly he has been clean since he flipped his car in 1996 and spent time in the Betty Ford Clinic but maybe he just got smarter and hasn't been caught! Actor Christian Slater has been invited to be the celebrity pace car driver. Two years ago Slater was quoted in an article that he used drugs and said drug use can be safe. NASCAR is throwing the book at driver Jeremy Mayfield for his failed drug test yet Brian France or Mike Helton will be posing with celebrities that have easy to find drug arrests or opinions that drug use is fine! Shouldn't NASCAR's drug free policy also apply to those invited to take part in the pre-race festivities? Why not bring in a former driver from Southern California or honor a brave hero back from Iraq or Afghanistan? NASCAR is not drug free before the race this weekend at California.

Different Kind of Apartheid
Last week I voiced my concern about the invasion of Saudi Royal Family money into NASCAR with the investment in George Gillette's financial empire, which includes Richard Petty Motorsports. The response was interesting. Some people have mentioned that investment by anyone is welcome in the sport right now because money is hard to come by right now. But I remember about 20 years ago when South African money was shunned because of their practice of apartheid. Protests erupted all over the world and companies that had the backing of South African companies were persuaded to get rid of that dirty money. Sporting events banned South African athletes because of the practice of their government. Apartheid was a horrid and ridiculous practice based on bigotry and racism. So why aren't the Saudi Royal family's abhorrent policies towards women treated with the same disdain? Why isn't their money shunned and rejected because of the way they mistreat more than 50% of their population? (Their repressive regime is equally harsh to men that disagree with the Royal Family) The argument that we should understand because that is THEIR system and culture to treat women like that wasn't accepted when the topic was South African apartheid twenty years ago! People were right to find apartheid disgusting enough to react by banning South African money twenty years ago and real change came about because of the protests. But in our kinder and gentler world of the 2000s we don't care about repressive governments if we need their money or oil! How did we respond to Tiananmen Square in China? We let everything that used to be produced in this country be made over there instead because they could make that stuff cheaper! How did we respond to evidence of abusive treatment of women in Saudi Arabia? We bought more of their oil and now invite their money to invest in everything including our All American sport of NASCAR! Our President of the United States shunned the Dalai Lama this week for fear of offending the Chinese government who is visiting soon. Could you imagine the uproar if the United States had reacted to South African apartheid in the same way welcoming their money and kissing up to their leaders? But now we are ok with financing our own demise by shipping work over to abusive countries or welcoming their money even if they lead the league in human rights abuses. The Saudi government practices a different kind of apartheid but all is well because we need their oil and money!

Truth Behind the Start Time Change
NASCAR made a big mistake listening to the television networks instead of their own fans a few years ago! Fans knew when the races were going to be on through years of having the race times make sense. But the television networks got greedy and demanded a change to the way things had always been done so they could boost the value of the advertising space. A funny thing happened on the way to prosperity…the value dropped because now fewer people were tuning into the broadcasts! Remember that old adage about hogs getting slaughtered? This week NASCAR pulled off an amazing miracle by getting all of their television partners to agree to change back to earlier start times. The cool thing is this will have an added bonus of giving NASCAR more flexibility dealing with weather. NASCAR listened to their fans for double-file restarts and they have done it again with the consistent start times for races. Just as radio legend Paul Harvey does all the time, today I will give you the rest of the story when it comes to start times. Was the change really inspired by the fans comments? The truth behind this change is that the football season will be lengthened starting next year pushing the Superbowl back even farther in February to the same day as the Daytona 500! Since Fox broadcasts the Superbowl every third year and knows it can't compete with the NFL finale on the other two years so something had to change. An earlier start time for the Daytona 500 had to be instituted in 2011 anyway. NASCAR was smart to take this opportunity to get the fan's needs met by moving all of the races back to a more consistent and earlier start time. But now you know the rest of the story and the truth behind what put these changes into motion.

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