NASCAR recently made several changes for its 2007 Nextel Cup season. Perhaps the most significant was increasing the incentive to actually win the races. Since the Nextel Cup is a points tournament, a driver can do very well by just hanging around and finishing near the top. But now, by awarding more points to the winner of each race, NASCAR just made winning quite a bit more valuable.
So it’s probably not surprising that drivers are a little bit more eager to win the Daytona 500, the first race of the year. How eager are they? Two top drivers — Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne were busted yesterday for cheating, having modified their cars to go faster. They’ll start at the end of the pack in Sunday’s big race, with more penalties likely to come later.
Here’s what we wrote last year about NASCAR.
6 Comments
Um, I do not see how you can associate this to the change in rules regarding points. Last year Jimmie Johnson was caught with illegal mods. Every year, this kind of thing happens; but, the change is that NASCAR is getting more serious about checking. I think most of these are of the “pushing the rules” types of modifications. In this case, illegal holes, which may or may not improve aerodynamics a bit.
— pkimelmaI think at the end of the day these guys all want to win regardless of points. (Otherwise folks would stop showing up once the Top 10 was decided for the last 10 races)
Besides cheating and NASCAR go hand in hand - The cheaters are just the guys who got caught. Everyone is always pushing the limits of every rule.
— rycolemanLess I remind people that NASCAR’s roots were the bootleggers of the south racing with their illegal moonshine?
— BRKelleyAs a former POTUS said, it depends on what the meaning of is, is.
— indi500fanNascar has certainly increased its technical inspection capability. Primarily when they hired Gary Nelson, one of the most “creative” guys in the garage to oversee their tech ops.
This item reminded me of one of my most Freakonomic experiences. The diametricly opposed version of the race car drivers.
Taxicab lease driver.
Lots and lots of threats. And lots and lots of incentives to cheat.
In many areas, cabbies have interesting incentives. The burden of paying the lease fees to the company. And the risk of violence from criminal passengers.
This leads to cheating in two ways.
Breaking the regulations. Like picking up in unlicensed areas, doing drug runs, overcharging tourists, and so forth. That bad behaviour is based on the incentive to earn money. Remember - the lease driver must PAY each shift or week, just to maintain his/her job. While the company has zero obligation to pay any sustainable wage.
NASCAR drivers, teams, and owners, also have high overhead. That isn’t a wimpy hourly wage position, either.
And it also leads to the cabbie’s quasi-cheating resistance of passengers. Like refusing a young, black male passenger, or refusing to go to certain parts of the city. That rule-breaking behaviour is based on the DIS-incentive of avoiding violence. The cabbie has a license, exam, police check, etc, but the passenger isn’t vetted on his/her tendancy to cheat.
While, on the other hand, desperation for money leads to taking risks. The NASCAR driver goes faster, on weak tyres. Or modifies his/her car to do speeds beyond the track’s rating. While the impoverished cabbie picks up that dodgy-looking guy off the street at 3AM.
Both are desperate for cash. Often, both come from working-class backgrounds.
Another connection is the stereotypes racing fan’s alleged (OK, real) desire to see a crash. Showing lack of empathy for workers whom they view as even lower-class than themselves. It connects to the frequent contempt towards lower-class cabbies, and disregard for their safety.
Anyway, the connection between the cabbies and and NASCAR drivers can involve moral grudges. With the perspective that, “THEY (customers) don’t care that I am risking my neck here. So WHY should I increase my risk, and decrease my financial prospect, by adhering to any moral (anti-cheating) standards?”
— vicky@ vicky - I don’t think NASCAR fans feel that drivers are ‘lower-class than themselves’ - I live in NASCAR country, and people deify drivers, notably Dale Earnhardt, who died in a wreck. I do agree that NASCAR fans love wrecks, but hey, look at Anna Nicole coverage - apparently we all love wrecks.
As far as cheating in NASCAR goes, it does have the upside of leading to inovations in the automotive industry. Those drivers, pit crews and crew chiefs are inventive and creative, and since they have real-world experience, they can sometimes come up with what has elluded engineers at the drawing board. Sometimes, they come up with bent rules that aren’t improvements, but interesting none the less. I heard the story of a car with an extremely long fuel line. The size of the fuel tank was limited, but the size of the line was not, and with a very long line, they could effectively increase the size of the car’s fuel storage.
So, in NASCAR, like in some other fields, cheating leads to improvements.
— w24×192