Cale Yarborough, right, kicks and pushes Bobby Allison, center, who grabs Yarborough's leg as brother Donnie Allison tries to pull his brother free from the fight after the 1979 Daytona 500. The fight is regarded as a watershed moment for NASCAR. Photo by The Associated Press.
AVONDALE, Ariz.
Before moving from the racetrack to the announcer's booth seven years ago, Darrell Waltrip won three NASCAR championships in the early 1980s and 84 races in NASCAR's premier series.
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The popular and outspoken Waltrip wouldn't mind racing in today's era. When he retired in 1990, he had won $19 million. He figures he would make four times that amount if he were racing nowadays.
But Waltrip also concedes that he wouldn't survive in today's Nextel Cup Series, though he believes he could race wheel to wheel with any of the current hotshots.
"I had a problem with authority, and today if you have a problem with authority you'd be choked to death by the environment," Waltrip said a few hours before the start of Saturday night's Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway.
In Waltrip's day, the oil-encrusted cuticles on a driver's hands were badges of honor, proof that he also worked on his racecar. Today, NASCAR's pop-star drivers have manicures.
Be clean. Drive clean. Talk clean. And don't fight ... not even if you fight clean.
In today's racing world, a clean image is so critical that many mechanics wear gloves while doing the dirty, greasy jobs.
It seems an odd atmosphere for a sport that evolved from moonshine running in the 1950s and lists a two-on-one fight among drivers as the biggest moment in the 48-year history of its biggest annual race and perhaps all of NASCAR.
But a heat-of-the-moment push by Jeff Gordon to the chest of Matt Kenseth after the March 26 race at Bristol, Tenn., was big news, too. It was caught live on national television and replayed countless times. Gordon, a four-time Cup Series season champion and its de facto ambassador, was fined $10,000 and put on probation for five months.
NASCAR president Mike Helton understands why it happened. He just doesn't want it to happen again.
"You can be rough and tough and still be a good guy," he said. "I think that's part of what NASCAR is. NASCAR is also a sport and it has emotions with it.
"What we're looking for is to present the sport to the broadest possible age bracket, and that includes children, who I don't think need to see the wrong thing."
Fighting and cussing apparently are among the wrong things.
Waltrip, nicknamed "Jaws" for his outspoken nature when he raced, is part of the announcing crew for Fox Sports. He knows television has rocketed NASCAR to the top but it has also sanitized the sport more than he'd like.
He said it wasn't uncommon in his early days for one driver to grab another after a race because of what occurred on the track.
"Richard Petty grabbed me about every week," he said.
"Drivers are more into aggravating each other than physically hurting each other. If you notice, drivers don't take their helmets off, so you know they're not going to get in a fight."
Still, it's ironic that NASCAR takes such a strong stance against physical contact between drivers because it considers the 1979 fight between Cale Yarborough and brothers Donnie and Bobby Allison on the track after the Daytona 500 as the start of its modern era. That was the first Cup race televised live and in its entirety (CBS aired it), and the tussle created a national buzz about stock-car racing.
The fight, which led to each driver being fined $1,000, was NASCAR's first big moment as a national topic. But Helton believes once is enough.
"At the end of the day, the character of our sport hinges on being a sport, and emotions go with it," he said. "(Our drivers are) human and they have to be given some latitude to be human with their emotions."
Two weeks ago during a race at Texas Motor Speedway, Nicole Lunders, the girlfriend of Cup driver Greg Biffle took exception after Kurt Busch ran into the rear of Biffle's car during the race. Lunders walked down pit road to Busch's pit stall, then climbed a few steps up the pit box to voice her displeasure to Busch's fiancee, Eva Bryan.
Television cameras were there and it was big news.
Jim Hunter, NASCAR vice president of corporate communications, said incidents like that are part of making it to the big leagues.
"It's wanted news today," he said of NASCAR. "With NASCAR being recognized as a national sport, (NASCAR drivers are) going to get scrutinized like all other athletes."
Girlfriends, too.
Biffle said of the incident, "It was kind of an uneventful weekend in sports ... so it was a highlight." Lunders was reprimanded by NASCAR, but not punished for going into another team's pit area.
Helton also said he understands Lunders' reaction, but also doesn't want to see it happen again.
"Hopefully those things don't become commonplace, and NASCAR's role is to make sure they don't," he said.
"(But) there has to be some understanding of the emotions in the sport whether it's from girlfriends, wives, drivers or crew members. There are energies around sports that go beyond the playing field."
