Da' Bris

First, as disclosure, I didn't watch the race. I listened to most of it on the radio, so I never saw the video of Robby Gordon and the alleged roll-cage padding incident. Whether Gordon did it intentionally or not is too hard to figure out. Even if Nascar inspected every car, as Jeff Burton suggested, the padding may not have come from actual roll cage in the car. Someone could have had an extra piece hidden in their car, much like Macho Man Savage used to hide foreign objects in his tights. Suddenly the circumstances get desperate and out comes the padding. Burton has a right to be mad about an ill-timed and unnecessary caution. It wasn't however unnecessary because someone tried to throw debris on the track. It was unnecessary becuase with the technology available to Nascar, they should be able to decide what is actually debris.

If High Definition TV can pick up doodoo on Kenny Rogers' hand, it should certainly be able to differentiate foam padding from a tire, spring rubber, brake rotor, hot dog wrapper or Budweiser can. Of course this is the officiating body that flew a green flag while an entire safety crew was still on the track at Lowe's.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but as long as there are great inconsistencies like this in Nascar, people will wonder. David Poole wrote an excellent column today pointing out the large conflicts of interest in Nascar.