Money can't buy you class

The Bristol Herald-Courier has a fantastic article about life outside the upper reaches of NASCAR’s Name-That-Cup Series, focusing on Abingdon, Va.-based driver Eric McClure. Aside from being a former classmate of mine at Emory & Henry (I didn’t know him – at least I don’t think so…), McClure is a member of the family whose Morgan-McClure Motorsports finally shut down last year due to financial constraints.

This has happened to a lot of the smaller teams in recent years, unfortunately. Despite NASCAR’s position that setting strict templates and requiring the purchase of this body type, that tire, etc., actually makes it cheaper to field a car, the gap between the haves and have-nots gets wider every year. And we’re seeing the result, in the form of yawn-worthy races and drivers selected more for their ability to film a commercial than to wheel a car.

We’re also losing a vital piece of our culture – and by that I mean both our regional culture and our sport’s culture. NASCAR developed such a rabid fan base in the middle part of the 20^th century because, unlike other pro sports, racing was inherently democratic. The guy that you saw at Bowman Gray this week could conceivably win a Cup championship a year or so later. Drivers who spent 10 or 15 years banging out their dents and rebuilding their own engines had a little more appreciation for success when it came to them, and they were better racers for it (I’m talking to you, Kyle Busch).

Of course, high-dollar sponsorships are wonderful things – they allow teams more stability, professionalism and all that. Of course a sponsor shelling out $20 million deserves a return on that investment. But they also have to be realistic. I think, in trying to sell the idea that NASCAR is just like every other sport, the powers-that-be have done a real disservice to drivers, team owners, new fans, old fans and sponsors, too. I can’t help but think that NASCAR could do more to keep the Roushes, the Hendricks and the Gibbses of the world from sucking up all the oxygen.

Eric McClure still drives in the Nationwide (formerly Busch) Series, the #24 Hefty Brand Chevrolet. In that same series, two Joe Gibbs Racing teams felt they didn’t have quite enough of an advantage already, and fixed a chassis dyno test to make it look like the cars had less horsepower than they actually did. For this they were “slammed” with a whole $100,000. In a perfect world, that cash would go to the Nationwide regulars, who – if you ask me – were the real losers here.

My mom always told me, money can't buy you class.

UPDATE: ESPN.com's Ed Hinton gets Junior Johnson's take on cheating in NASCAR, which the ex-felon euphemistically considers "creativity." I have to tell you, as much as NASCAR's templates annoy me, I have a real problem with glamorizing cheating, or the breaking of federal laws, for that matter. For instance:

"Junior's daddy was imprisoned three times for moonshining. His mother was booked, fingerprinted, her mugshot taken, but never did time. All the Johnson family of Wilkes County, N.C., ever did, they felt, was earn their living the best they could on hardscrabble land that would barely grow corn for the sour mash. Making liquor in the hollows was hard work, and outrunning the law on the road was harder."

Hmm. Change "moonshining" to "dealing crack," "Wilkes County" to "South Central" and all that mythical BS about hardscrabble land to something about inner cities, and something tells me NASCAR's core audience wouldn't be quite so empathetic.

And I still don't see why we should pat a behemoth like JGR, with its bottomless pockets, on the back for their "creativity" while drivers like Eric McClure struggle to put together a season. Don't misplace your sympathy.

And by the way, my family and plenty of others managed to survive in those same hollers - that's what we call them, ESPN.com - without ever having to go to the federal pen.