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I've just got to repost this that Pete-R-Bilt put up last week...

Who makes NASCAR's decisions? Larry? Moe?
BOB LIPPER
POINT OF VIEW
Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Question No. 22: Jimmy Spencer wins the Slap a Decal on the Fender and Call It Mad Money 220.5 at Watkins Glen on Sunday and discovers the Big Blue Bottle atop his Chevy when he climbs from the car in victory lane. Does he ...

A. Pulverize it with a socket wrench?

B. Grip it by the neck with both hands, spin several revolutions in a tight circle and hammer-throw it to the audience to commemorate the start of the Summer Games in Athens?

C. Place it on a kicking tee and boot it over Mike Helton's furiously-waving arms and into the grandstand? D. All of the above?

We can dream, can't we? Or do you not think NAS- CAR could use a Mr. Excitement moment as opposed to the mystifying endorsement follies that have sent an already careening season into a barrel roll?

Some debut it's been for the Brian France administration. Under NASCAR's third-generation ruler (maybe we should call it the House of France or is that an insult to foie gras and Juliette Binoche?), we've witnessed the circuit's most bizarre campaign since Tim Flock turned laps in the '50s with a monkey as his co-pilot.

Take the contrived playoff system (please). Proceed to loopy decisions on scoring (isn't keeping track of laps pretty, umm, fundamental?) and race management. Continue to driver discipline, in which NASCAR seems uncertain whether to take the perps to the woodshed or to lunch. Move on to debris-heaving fans and the suits' knee-jerk rules change to insure races conclude under green-flag conditions.

And we haven't even mentioned a roots-challenged 2005 schedule that erases Rockingham from the tour and relegates fabled Darlington to an afterthought.

Or the NASCAR business model, which goes something like: Once you've sold your soul, what's a little slice of sheet metal atop a rolling billboard?

Which brings us to Bottlegate. It's the ongoing controversy that stacks Big Brother against Big Bidness, and it began modestly enough at Las Vegas last Mar. 7. That's when race winner Matt Kenseth toting a bottle of Gatorade, with which he has an endorsement contract wriggled out of the car and swatted a bottle of Powerade from the roof of his Ford.

The Powerade had been placed there by a NASCAR flunky. NASCAR, see, has a deal with Powerade, a Pepsi product and therefore a mortal enemy of Gatorade (Coke). There's nothing NASCAR likes more than to satisfy its corporate backers by giving them maximum photo-op exposure in victory lane. Or drivers want less than to share face time with a competing brand.

Product removal by drivers continued for weeks until NASCAR's Helton issued a do-not-disturb warning. Whereupon Pocono winner Jimmie Johnson placed a sponsor's sign in front of the Powerade bottle and was fined $10,000 for his dastardly act. Which prompted Indy winner Jeff Gordon to park his car at the yard of bricks below the flagstand instead of proceeding to victory lane and the awaiting Powerade. NASCAR honchos fumed.

"I think it slipped my mind," Gordon deadpanned. "I thought victory lane was where those bricks were out there."

Gordon, a four-time Indy winner, could find victory lane blindfolded. What NASCAR can't locate are its senses and corporate compass.

Here's an organization that bars Roush Racing from lining up Crown Royal Whiskey to bankroll Jeff Burton's car because it objects to hard liquor as a team sponsor. The identical organization that through holding-company sister International Speedway Corp. swings a deal with the very same brew and plasters Crown Royal signs on Daytona's grandstands.

And these bubbleheads claim the drivers are out of bounds? Are you kidding me?