NASCAR Subculture - the Whine Heard Round the World; And What to Do with Wide-Whackers

Thursday's headlines should have read 'Tony Stewart no longer welcome in Pee Wee's Playhouse.' This would seem to be the case since the Vile Pee Wee look-a-like, Kyle Busch, spoke out about his run-in (literally) with Tony Stewart in final few feet of the Coke-Zero 400 at Daytona last Saturday night. If you didn't see the end of the race, haven't turned on the Internet or haven't spoken to any NASCAR fans in the past six days then you will be surprised (not) to find out that Kyle Busch wrecked himself and half the field while trying to block Tony Stewart from passing him while racing to the checkers. Yet, Thursday he loudly whined "He Hit Me!!" (Much the same phrase parents hear once they put more than one child in the back seat of a car.)

Last weekend 99.9% of the world's population saw Busch come up under Stewart at 185 mph (after Stewart had nudged him out of the way) and attempt to cut him off, neglecting to check with his spotter to see if he was clear of Stewart's #14 Chevy. Of course, he wasn't. His right rear quarter panel caught onto Stewart's left front bumper and he spun haplessly off of the nose of Stewart's race car, slammed the wall and was subsequently rear-ended by Kasey Kahne and then T-Boned by his teammate Joey Logano. Luckily, he was able to angrily stomp away after the accident.

But baby Busch thinks it wasn't an accident at all...he claims that Tony spun him on purpose and intentionally caused the multi car accident that ensued. He then went on to say that NASCAR should black flag any competitor that spins out another one while trying to win a race. Of course in his ignorance, he failed to realize that if NASCAR had such a rule, he'd have to give back over half of his trophies and winner's earnings. Just when we thought Kyle the Kindergartner couldn't get any worse, he comes up with this idiotic notion. He's supposed to be pretty smart, but I fail to see any evidence of that. I think Tony Stewart needs to go over to his playhouse and kick the stupidity right out of him.

Now that we have analyzed vile Kyle's latest ideas and determined that they are as dumb as the time he smashed the Gibson Guitar in victory lane in Nashville, let's move on to another enigma that has been vexing race fans for quite a few years now. What should NASCAR do about Wide-whackers?

What are Wide-whackers you ask? Well, we used to call them Busch-whackers, but since the 'Busch Grand National' series is now called the Nationwide series (NASCAR 's second tier series), I think they could be referred to as 'Wide-whackers'...drivers from the Sprint Cup series that interlope into the Nationwide series that, on one hand, draw big crowds into the stands but on the other hand, they dominate the races, take all the big prize money and win the championships, leaving the Nationwide-only teams starving for money and sponsorship. Wide-whackers are either the life breath of the series, or the death of it, depending on which side of the puzzle you're looking at.

A friend and I were discussing this issue last week, and he presented what I think is a pretty darned good idea. Why not have the Wide-whackers come in and race with the Nationwide regulars, but run their own 'race within a race'. The Wide-whacker's can race against the new young drivers and Nationwide veterans on the track, but when the checkers fall, they can have their own finishing order and prize money and points, and let the Nationwide folks have a separate finishing order. This would work much like the Grand Am and American Le Mans series do; with different classes of race car on the track competing against their own class and the other classes at the same time. In the end, we see different winners, one for each class.

This way, the Nationwide series can have the 'star cars' such as Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Vile Busch to draw fans into the stands and yet let a Nationwide regular such as Brad Keselowski, Jason Leffler or Steve Wallace run for wins and championships in their own series. The Cup regulars can run for prize money from a different purse than the Nationwide drivers; I'm sure NASCAR can figure out a way to divide it up fairly. Also, the 'super teams' such as Roush, Childress and Gibbs wouldn't suck all of the money away from the struggling Nationwide-only teams. There can be two trophies in each race, one for the top finishing Nationwide-only driver, and one for the top Wide-whacker. (The Nashville Speedway can have a real Gibson Guitar for the Nationwide regular, and have an inflatable one on hand in case Kyle Busch should be the winning whacker.)

And finally, the championship banquet at the end of the season won't look like a re-run of the cup series banquet. Yes, the Wide-whackers will have their own top ten and their own championship trophy, but so would the Nationwide regulars so we'd at least get to see some new faces and get to know the drivers who are the future of our sport. So, what do all y'all think? Feasible? Anyone got a better idea? Personally, I think it's quite do-able. Leave comments below!
Afterthought...when Tony Stewart goes over to Pee Wee Kyle's playhouse to teach him a lesson...will Tony be the new "Busch-whacker"? (Sorry- couldn't resist that one!)