The whole "Boys, have at it" doctrine sounds like a very good idea and many of us (myself included) thought "oh wow, returns of mass brawls on pit road? Hell fucking yes!"
Then Atlanta happened. And NASCAR's failure to hold the reigns. Really, NASCAR did this to themselves (although fan pressure has something to do with it) when they put Earl on probation--which, by the way, means jack shit--for three races, basically saying "alright, go ahead and maim each other on the track, we don't care. We want ratings."
Gateway happened, and NASCAR tightened the reigns a little, docking Carl 50 points (or was it 59? All I know is that that was huge in the NBS championship). However, they also dropped the ball when they put Brad Keselowski on probation for the rest of the year, basically saying that Brad isn't allowed to do something he might do, since NASCAR has apparently never heard of hindsight.
Kyle began to push the envelope a little bit starting with Darlington, when he retaliated against Kevin Harvick. Harvick was going to have a few nice words with Kyle, but he chose flight instead of fight. Who knows, maybe Harvick could throw a punch in there. Maybe he'll just point at him, saying "do that again to me and I'll make sure you don't finish that race." Who the hell knows? Then Bristol happened with Elliot Sadler and NASCAR didn't do anything about it IIRC. And then...there's Texas. I don't think I need to describe what happened since it was covered in this thread.
That, right there, was too far in NASCAR's mind. To be honest, the whole doctrine could have worked if NASCAR suspended Carl for even one race (maybe 3). This tells the drivers that they can confront each other, but don't use the cars as weapons. Auto racing is a dangerous sport as it is already. They shouldn't add more unnecessary danger in this sport. These are human beings we're seeing on the track week-in and week-out and it would totally suck if one of those get taken away just because someone else decided to be an asshat for an earlier wreck and blatantly took still another out.
And no, I still don't buy the whole COT MAKES DRIVERS SUPERHUMAN argument.
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