NASCAR blog: America’s funniest (meaning peculiar) decision

Boy, ABC must be paying a ton for the rights to show “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

How else can you explain the curious (and embarrassing to NASCAR) decision to switch the final laps of last week’s race at Phoenix from the network to ESPN2? ABC officials say it had an “obligation” to honor in making the decision. To what? Coco the saxophone-playing chimp? Actually, that would be better TV than most Sprint Cup races this year.

Anyway, I had changed channels for a little NFL fix as the race was under caution. I switched back and thought, rather surprisingly, that I had missed the ending. I finally found it in time for the final two-lap shootout. Really, not since NBC decided to televise “Heidi” instead of the finish of an NFL game three decades ago have we had such a strange move.

And considering the millions of dollars ABC is spending on its NASCAR rights, you have to wonder what was going on in New York when the decision was made. You would also like to know what Brian France and Mike Helton were thinking at that very moment. France, after obviously cooling off, did express disappointment this week.

“We didn’t like it — that was not what we had anticipated — but we have talked to them repeatedly in the last couple days,” France said. “There were lots of circumstances that we have to consider. They have their own issues they had to manage around. Unfortunately, we got the short end of that.”

I mean, this wasn’t President-elect Obama speaking to the nation. This wasn’t even “Dancing With the Stars.” Oh, well, bring on Coco, and by the way, NASCAR fans, if you want to see Jimmie Johnson all but clinch a rare three-peat, you’ll have to look elsewhere.