It would be difficult to find a bigger NASCAR fan than Mack McCarthy, the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball coach.
In fact, McCarthy is so passionate about stock-car racing that he takes offense to being labeled something so pedestrian as a fan, arguing, “I’m much more than a fan when it comes to NASCAR.”
So what better person to ask about Jeff Gordon’s controversial driving this past weekend at California’s Infineon Raceway road course than the only coach ever to guide the Mocs to the Sweet 16?
“Well, I’m slightly prejudiced, being an Earnhardt traditionalist,” said McCarthy, a fanatical supporter of the late Dale Earnhardt. “But I don’t despise Jeff as much as I used to. He’s as good as there has ever been on road courses, even if it pains me to say that.
“It does seem to me, though, that he got desperate on Sunday, that he did things he usually doesn’t do.”
For those of you glued to the U.S. Open, World Cup soccer or the battling Braves, what Gordon did was drive recklessly enough or aggressively enough — the fiery Earnhardt would certainly have called it nothing more than aggressive — to cause both Martin Truex Jr. and Elliott Sadler to wreck, as well as Kurt Busch.
Afterward, Mannequin Man said of his bizarre behavior (for him, anyway): “There are some things I’m not proud of that I did today, certainly with Martin. I completely messed that up.”
For his part, Truex wasn’t exactly buying it.
“I guess Jeff figured (if) he couldn’t catch us on the race track, he was going to spin us out on the restart,” Truex said.
But it’s what Gordon added about a similar collision with Busch that surely is opening eyes throughout the sport.
“Kurt Busch had everything coming to him that I gave him, because he gave it to me on the restart before that,” said Gordon, who hasn’t won a race in more than a year. “So I don’t feel sorry about that.”
Chattanooga resident and longtime Gordon fan Calvin Hughes was sorry to see it.
“I wasn’t necessarily happy,” the 41-year-old Hughes said Tuesday evening. “But if he doesn’t do it, it probably would have been done to him. It has been done to Jeff a couple of times this year and probably cost him races.”
The bigger question is whether or not this is what NASCAR secretly wanted when it sent out a memo this past winter to “Have at it, boys,” which seemed to say it was time for the drivers to return to their rubbin’ and wreckin’ roots in an attempt to boost recently sagging ratings.
Even Hughes, who said one reason he likes Gordon is because he’s “a clean driver,” admitted that he doesn’t follow the sport as much as he once did.
“NASCAR has changed a lot the last 10 years,” he said. “I just don’t enjoy watching it on TV anymore. I think the (aggressiveness) is good. I think they’ll police it enough that it won’t get out of hand.”
McCarthy isn’t so sure.
“Those guys are so good that they can wreck anybody at any time,” he said. “But you don’t want it to become a farce, and you don’t want anybody to get hurt. There still have to be some rules.”
You can never have it both ways. Earnhardt’s death on the final lap at Daytona in 2001 seemed to deliver a sea change to the sport now overrun with such bland, cookie-cutter nice guys as Jimmie Johnson and Gordon. Even bad guy Tony Stewart often seems little more than a four-cylinder version of Earnhardt the Intimidator.
But at least they’re all still with us, growing old rather than dying young. Let all this testosterone reverse that welcome trend and NASCAR could see ratings decline due to anger rather than apathy.
Yet for the short term — which is where American business too often lives — letting the greased-lightning gang have at it figures to be a winner.
“There’s a time and place to get even with everybody,” said Hughes, looking ahead to this week’s Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire. “You can run somebody into the wall at New Hampshire and not hurt them. This will be a payback week for somebody, and it might be Jeff.”
You can see the television ratings meter soaring already.