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Unwritten rules change just like the written ones

Sporting News, The, July 28, 2003 by Matt Crossman

The NASCAR rulebook describes strict regulations about everything from how old a driver must be to how a gas tank must be constructed. There are enough written rules to spark arguments from now until Dale Earnhardt III takes the wheel, but this year, the biggest dispute is about an unwritten edict found nowhere in the rulebook's 83 pages.

The gentleman's agreement that says drivers won't pass after a caution flag comes out is the equivalent of the unwritten rule in baseball that says you don't steal bases when you have a huge lead.

But NASCAR's gentleman's agreement and baseball's unwritten rules came into being in a different era. No lead is safe in baseball anymore, and drivers shouldn't be expected to abide by deals cut in a time when there was much less parity.

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The gentleman's agreement was put in place when only a few drivers could win on any given Sunday. Because of that, there weren't as many drivers whose opinions mattered, and a few elite drivers got together and said, "This is how we're going to do it."

That was fine then. It shouldn't apply now.

Judging by what drivers have done and said this season, it's clear that a lot of them don't share the views of their predecessors.

"We're going to try to work with our own gentleman's rules," second-year driver Ryan Newman said in a news conference last week. "The cars are so equal, and the track position is so important, if you've got a chance to pass when you come back to the line, you're going to cherry-pick it.

"Drivers are starting to do that. It has happened in reference to keeping cars a lap down, and it has happened in reference to guys racing back for a position."

These days, a lot more guys can win, and guess what? They want to, and they think meekly falling in line when the caution flag flies is hooey.

The NASCAR rulebook clearly allows--by omission, anyway--racing back to the line when the caution flag is out. The problem: The flag flies before the caution actually starts. When a wreck happens, for example, the flag is waved, but the caution period does not officially begin until the cars get back to the start-finish line. The gentleman's agreement compels drivers to act as if the caution starts immediately.

If NASCAR wants to legalize the gentleman's agreement, the rule would have to say the caution starts immediately when the flag is waved.

But that would be almost impossible to enforce because race officials would have to determine the exact position of all 43 cars at one precise moment. That would be an unmitigated disaster.

It's much easier, more practical and more accurate to set the restart lineup based on how the cars pass the start-finish line. And if drivers want to race back to the line, they should do it.

Unwritten rules change just like the written ones

Sporting News, The, July 28, 2003 by Matt Crossman

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