Socratic NASCAR

This post was originally published on Side of the Road on June 7, 2011, which is also my birthday so I have no idea why I was blogging about Kyle fracking Busch. It's very special because its concept and title led to me starting this blog. Read the original post here.

I have started this post about five different times. Each time, I start out trying to be even-handed, fair and detached… and after a few hundred words I find myself typing some variation of, “If I had $150,000, I’d punch Kyle Busch in the face, too.”

Let’s have a Socratic dialogue (multi-logue?) between the many warring factions of my conscience:

Obviously, Richard Childress was wrong to put Kyle Busch in a headlock and punch him repeatedly following last weekend’s truck race. Physical violence is wrong.
Well, yeah. And that’s why NASCAR was right to fine Childress $150,000. For one, Childress is an owner and Busch a driver. They aren’t peers in this case.

Ah, power differential. Discussion of relative privilege in the garage. Fun!
Sort of. This is one of the reasons that, as much as I can’t stand Kyle Busch, I’m not in the “Let’s all high-five Richard Childress” camp. Do we really want to set a precedent that it’s okay (at least in fans’ eyes) for an owner to beat up another team’s driver? Sure, this time it was the driver a lot of fans despise and the owner a lot of fans respect, but what about next time?

Hey, now. Kyle Busch isn’t exactly “underprivileged.”
True. It seems, judging by various accounts, that what pushed Childress over the edge was what he saw as Busch’s mistreatment of Joey Coulter. It was Coulter’s eighth start in the Trucks Series –

Exactly! Kyle Busch has been driving full-time in the Cup Series for years, and he picks on an inexperienced kid.
Don’t interrupt.

Sorry.
As I was saying, Busch slammed Coulter’s truck after the race was over – I know you want to say something, but hold on – so, I think in Childress’ view he was defending someone who didn’t have the clout to defend himself. Just like the kid who finally whales on the schoolyard bully who’s been picking on the first-graders, he’s going to have to do his time in the principal’s office.

Can I talk now?
Go ahead.

Busch is supposedly on probation for that incident at Darlington where he ran Kevin Harvick’s car into the wall, also after the race. Why isn’t bumping Coulter his last strike?
Um, is my name Mike Helton? How do I know? My guess would be that Busch’s actions took place on the track, and therefore fall under the “boys, have at it” exemption. You may think Busch was being overly aggressive, or you may think that he was exercising the privileges that come with experience, as other drivers have done since this sport began. But NASCAR is clearly trying to move back to a time when drivers governed the on-track society and enforced mutually developed group norms.

I’m sorry, what?
Sorry. I wrote my undergrad thesis analyzing NASCAR fans as a subculture, and I’m still fascinated by how people form group identities, how they decide what’s “normal” within the group and how they handle “deviant” behavior –

Alrighty then…
Anyway, I guess my takeaway is that I’m glad Busch got his ass beat, while not being seriously injured. Apparently nothing else was getting through to him, so maybe this will. Pretty much every driver goes through a cocky punk stage, and Busch is has too much talent to keep making me hate him so much.

Say something nice about Kyle Busch.

Ok, I can handle this one. Yes, Busch is now the guy who got beat up by someone’s grandpa. But if he’d hit Childress back, well that definitely would’ve violated his probation, not to mention permanently black-flagged him for all but the most unrepentantly douchey fans. If that was a deliberate decision, it was a good one. I also like that he’s let NASCAR handle this without any public whining.