2020 NASCAR Thread

Thing is, with no fans right now, it gives some time for the change to sink in mentally.

 

Given that they actually on paper now own tracks hosting about half the races ...

 

He's a relatively famous internet troll. His main shtick is to pretend to be well-known reporters to see if he can get journalists to report his "scoops."

He's the one who got Skip Bayless to say that Chris Paul made James Harden cry at practice by mocking his manboobs.

 

This was brilliant writing by Ryan McGee, who probably lost some fans he didn’t particularly want in the first place.

Because gone with it is the perpetual need for me to apologize to my coworkers of color, who politely winced whenever we entered a speedway infield to be greeted by a line of Confederate flags. Gone is the instant evidence always used against me by friends and colleagues who refused to accept my pleas of "NASCAR has changed, really!" because they only had to point over my shoulder at the flags whipping in the wind in HDTV every Sunday afternoon. Gone are the skeptical rolled eyes that Wallace has had to combat his entire life. Same for NBA All-Star-turned-NASCAR team owner Brad Daugherty, or NASCAR official Kirk Price, or the family of NASCAR Hall of Famer Wendell Scott, the only other black driver to make his living as a Cup Series driver. All of them have spent their lives going to the racetrack, having achieved their dream of working at the highest level of stock car racing, only to have to explain over and over again why they chose to work at a place where multiple symbols of hate are displayed out in the open.

Before we go any further, I want to address the "Heritage Not Hate" crowd. I'm talking about those who sound like me and look like me and, like me, have a deep-rooted Southern upbringing. Let's be totally clear here: by agreeing with NASCAR's decision, I'm not betraying anyone or anything. And don't start lecturing me on history, either. You don't have a boot to stand in when it comes to teaching me what that flag means. You go tale-of-the-tape with me on our Confederate DNA, and you're going to go down harder than Pickett's Charge.

I am a direct descendant of slave owners. My family still owns the home where my forefathers lived while the human beings they owned worked all around them. As I write this, I am sitting on the North Carolina coast just south of Fort Fisher, the would-be protector of the port of Wilmington that was overrun by Union forces during the winter of 1865. My great-great-great grandfather and uncle were taken prisoner after fighting under that flag and were shipped off to a prison camp in Elmira, N.Y. -- a.k.a., "Hell-mira" -- and when the Civil War ended, they walked home, 600 miles, to Rockingham, N.C. I have a photo of myself as a newborn, held in the arms of my great aunt, who, as a child, talked to those men about what they fought for and lost. In the end, they were buried as citizens of the United States of America, with their nation's real flag, the Stars and Stripes, displayed over the gate to the cemetery.

So, don't come at me with claims that I don't understand what the flags of the Confederate States of America stood for, or what it stands for now.

My forefathers lost that war. I'm glad they lost it. They were on the wrong side of history. They've all been dead for more than a century and yet I've found myself still working to correct their wrongs. My brother has stood in the same field where the slaves once worked for my family. The man with the deed on the house, holding hands and weeping with the descendants of the people of whom my family once held the deed.

So, yeah, spare me the arguments about what that flag really means. I know exactly what it means. It means pain. It means anguish. It means embarrassment. It means the most shameful blight on the pages of the history of the United States, and that's no small achievement.​

 

Really is a terrific column. It explains his inner conflict of loving a sport but hating what comes with it.
Football has violence and a history of indifference to it.
College sports have runners and agents and a generally seedy underbelly.
NASCAR's ancillary evils are worse than any others in sports. At least they did something about theirs.

 

Former colleague of mine has a book out now that is probably pretty well-timed.

How A Black Man Drove For A Place In A White Man’s Sport

 

Noncompetitive loser raises his hand, says “I’m a big, giant racist.”

NASCAR driver Ray Ciccarelli says he's leaving at end of the season, citing disagreement with flag policy

 

NASCAR bans Confederate flags on the same day a driver races in a car sponsored by Black Lives Matter.
We are indeed in strange times, folks.

 

Big step, but let's see if it amounts to anything more than NASCAR's well-timed press release.

I'm not sure how enforceable a ban is, or by whom.

And while I applaud Ryan's piece, I'd have applauded much louder if he'd written it ten years ago.*


* if he did, please let me know.

 

Now there's a good hill to die on. Maybe they'll erect a statue of him...