Friday, April 30, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JEFF WOLF: Cup, Busch races shouldn't end under caution

"We've got the best fans in the country."

That's a common claim by everyone in NASCAR, from fans to drivers to track owners.

If that's true, who were the idiots launching cans, bottles and other foreign objects onto Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday?

Drunk or sober, they were morons.

And there had to be a couple thousand of them, or a handful must have consumed 20 cases of beer to have that many empties.

Was their reaction because Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s pass of Jeff Gordon for the lead was voided, occurring just after the caution flag waved with four laps remaining?

Or was it because it was apparent the race would end under caution?

Keeping Gordon in the lead was the correct call.

The only bad aspect of the decision to negate Earnhardt's pass was it took the air out of my conspiracy theory that all calls involving Earnhardt go his way.

To his credit, Earnhardt handled the decision maturely and with a smile.

And he contributed the best post-race comment, tossing in a plug for the quality of his sponsor's product:

"I didn't see any Bud cans getting thrown. A lot of Coors (cans). Must tell you something. Maybe the last few swallows (of Coors) don't taste that good."

Now I'm glad Earnhardt was selected one of "People Magazine's" 50 most beautiful people.

But there's nothing pretty about ending a race under caution, considering the cost of admission.

NASCAR never takes a victory from a driver during the post-race inspection, regardless of the severity of a rules violation, because it wants fans to leave knowing they saw the winner take the checkered flag.

So why let fans leave watching the winner drive 50 mph across the finish line?

NASCAR will not red-flag or stop a race and restart it if there are less than five laps left.

However, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series uses a "green-white-checker" flag to ensure a two-lap shootout at the end of races. That's not the policy in NASCAR's Busch and Cup series.

The guaranteed green-flag finish works for me, but doesn't for Las Vegas Nextel Cup rookie Brendan Gaughan, who raced trucks the past two years.

He said this week he was just happy to be breathing after the wild Talladega race, in which he posted a Cup career-best 13th-place finish.

"You can't use the green-white-checker in the Cup series," he said. "There's already too much pressure on these crew chiefs in Cup. Crew chiefs and engineers calculate fuel mileage down to the last lap.

"When something happens like it did Sunday, it could take five to 10 laps to clean the track. If we come in for a splash of fuel, we can lose 15 positions.

"I'm sympathetic to the fans for wanting to see the race end under green, but didn't the fans watch 185 of 188 laps that were real nail-biters? It was still a fantastic race."

It was an exciting race for 98.4 percent of the laps, but it was those missing 1.6 percent that racing fans deserved to see.

• SO LONG, KEITH -- One of the greatest men to drive a race car in Las Vegas is leaving town next week.

He wasn't the most accomplished driver, but he had perhaps the most character.

Keith Danser and his wife, Wendy, are moving to Hutchinson, Kan., where they've bought 20 acres.

The veteran racer at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's Bullring will be remembered as the man who created an event that now carries his name: The Keith Danser Candy Toss, which made hundreds of kids happy each August at the Bullring.

Danser will be back in Las Vegas on May 19 to receive the "Good Neighbor Award" from the National Grocers Association.

Jeff Wolf's motorsports column is published Friday. He can be reached at 383-0247 or jwolf@reviewjournal.com.