In The Pits: NASCAR finales livened up with drama

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP)—Denny Hamlin beamed from ear-to-ear as he gleefully explained his role in the latest round of bumper cars with nemesis Brad Keselowski.

“The sun was real bad at that point,” Hamlin said with a wink, pausing to soak in the roar of approval from the crowd at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“I think the fans right there got their money’s worth.”

Did they ever.

The final weekend of NASCAR’s long season closed with a bang, and not from the fireworks following Jimmie Johnson’s record fourth straight championship. Tempers erupted in two different races, thrilling fans who have been largely starved the last several years for some old-fashioned on-track drama.

There was a time in NASCAR when drivers fought all the time, and grudges lasted for years. Any on-track slight could ignite a battle, proven 30 years ago when brothers Bobby and Donnie Allison climbed from their cars following the 1979 Daytona 500 to double-team Cale Yarborough in a post-race brawl.

It was the first Daytona 500 televised nationally in its entirety, and the brawl was seared into viewers’ minds. Who were these grime-covered Southerners, and why were they fighting on national TV?

At the time, that image worked well for NASCAR as it began its expansion from small Southern sport into a major racing series. But when the sport exploded in popularity two decades later, NASCAR tried hard to shed its stereotypes and mold its drivers into Madison Ave. pitchmen.

The edict from above was clear: No more fighting.

Those who defied the order were swiftly punished with anything from monetary fines to probation. Even squeaky-clean Jeff Gordon violated the order, earning the only behavior-related penalty of his career for shoving Matt Kenseth after a race at Bristol.

And so it all began to stop, leaving fans hungry for the action and emotion they want out of NASCAR.

“There was an era where we felt like we needed to clean it up, and progressively reacted that way. Obviously, it was to protect the character of NASCAR,” president Mike Helton said Monday. “We didn’t certainly intend to make it too sterile, but the drivers were afraid to be themselves, and that’s not good.”

So NASCAR two seasons ago promised to let the drivers have a little bit more leeway in expressing their personalities.

Only no one really took the bait.

There was some name-calling, and an occasional nudge on the track. Nothing too exciting, though, at least until this weekend.

It started with Hamlin and Keselowski, a feud that had been heating up for months. Hamlin had vowed to get revenge in the Nationwide Series finale and struck early in Saturday’s race. He bumped Keselowski hard enough from behind to force his heated rival into a smoky spin.

“I just wanted to send a message that I am a man of my word,” Hamlin said after. “My father once told me, ‘If you say you are going to do something, you’ve got to do it. And he told me I had to do it, so I had to do it.”

That ended up being the undercard to Sunday’s showdown, which pitted two of NASCAR’s most temperamental drivers against one another.

Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya tangled three different times in the Sprint Cup Series finale, starting when Stewart cut Montoya off after passing him on the track. The fast-closing Montoya slammed hard into the back of Stewart’s car, and Stewart retaliated moments later with a door-to-door slam to show his displeasure.

That contact inadvertently cut Montoya’s tire, which caused him to wreck. After his crew repaired his car, a vengeful Montoya returned to the track and wrecked Stewart.

Again, the crowd went wild.

As attendance and ratings slipped all season long, it became fairly obvious what it is that the fans desire and what has been missing from NASCAR.

“Fans following sports, they expect (conflicts) and rightfully so,” Helton said. “When you put competition on a race track or a field, you are going to have conflicts. We understand it’s going to happen, and I think fans expect it.”

NASCAR did penalize both Hamlin and Montoya for aggressive driving, but the punishments were issued in-race and didn’t carry any significant value such as loss of points or a hefty fine. Whether the Homestead banging leads to similar incidents won’t be known until next season, but not everyone is convinced NASCAR needs the drama.

“What this sport needs is good racing,” veteran Jeff Burton said. “It doesn’t need running that mouth. Running that mouth is not what it’s all about. Good, hard racing is what fans want to see.”

Kevin Harvick, who seemed to explode almost weekly during the early years of his career, chimed in in agreement.

“Good, hard racing is going to create its own accidents,” he said. “It’s going to create its own moments, it’s going to create everything that the fans want to see. Good side-by-side racing, that stuff is going to happen regardless. I don’t want to get out anymore and fight with somebody. There’s not too many people in the garage that want to handle it that way.”

The fans do, though, and maybe there’s a middle ground that can be found before next season.