Step into the Ring: Nascar

Depending on how this season shakes up, Step Into the Ring will look into current rivalries shaping up in the Nascar Season.

Last time around in "Step into the Ring" I talked about Joey Logano and the mess he found himself in at the time. He was in the middle of a feud with Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart. Once again Stewart has been all Smoke and no fire (so far) and Denny Hamlin has been sidelined by the injury caused when he and JoLo got into a crash.

The past few weeks no driver has really stepped into the Nascar spotlight when it comes to new rivalries, but Nascar has started to bring up that "line" again.

After the race at Texas Motor Speedway Brad Keselowski came away furious. He claimed that he has

been "targeted" in the garage area. Many believe what he meant by that was that he was targeted by the Hendrick team. In the garage he was right next to the #48 crew (a crew that last year he pointed out that there rear end housings looked weird on the track, that they turned too well) and JoLo was right next to the #24 team. Nascar came down on the Penske Team and took their rear end housings before the race, leaving them to scramble to replace them. A big issue here for many fans (like or dislike BK) is that Nascar struck so quickly. Nascar didn't say they cheated but instead just that it was not in the spirit of the rule. When the Hendrick teams were called out for just about the same thing (being ahead of the learning curve) they got warnings and went 5 or 6 races before they had to change.

Here is the thing, everyone is chasing Hendrick. Everyone who knows Nascar knows that they have been ahead of the curve. Did it just happen that Penske had finally figure it out and found an edge? Maybe, we will know more when information comes out.

On the the important part here though, is this "line" that Nascar has created. Was that line crossed by Penske but somehow it wasn't by Hendrick last year? If so, how many turns and edge's does this line have?

Brad Keselowski vented his frustrations of the week after the race in Texas, ''There's so much stuff going on, you guys (reporters) have no idea - you have no (expletive) idea what's going on,'' he said. ''I can tell you there is no team in this garage with the integrity of the 2 team. The way we've been treated over the last seven days is absolutely shameful. I feel like we've been targeted over the last seven days more than I've ever seen a team targeted in my life.''

On Monday it was released that BK would not be fined for his post race rant. So, this little issue brings that "line" back again. I agree with the decision of not giving him a fine, but I also thought that Denny Hamlin should not have fined. That's where the line gets blurry (or winding).

I have no problem with Nacar drawing a line on some issues, every sport does. I hope that line lets drivers speak their mind though because as fans we love getting to know the drivers we follow. But right now Nascar has a problem with consistancy on the rules and needs to figure it out.

Much scrutiny is coming upon Nascar for many issues outside of racing (NRA 500) so the issue of what you can and can't say needs to be taking care of.

All people griping about disciplinary inconsistency have apparently never read the #NASCAR rulebook. Pretty clear. twitter.com/nascarcasm/sta…
— nascarcasm (@nascarcasm) April 15, 2013

So step into the ring Nascar, you have a target on you to draw a straight line. Between a 3 year old and you, I will take the 3 year old every time to draw straighter.

**Edit note: Penalties were assessed for the Penske team after I finished this article. So here it is: each team loses 25 points, Crew Chiefs, Car Engineer, and Team Manager for 6 races. Also Crew Chiefs fined $100,000 each. BK moves from 2nd to 4th and JoLo moves from 9th to 14th in points standings. Penske will appeal. Ryan Truex was docked 6 points and will not appeal. (Side note, Ron Hornaday gets a $25,000 fine and 25 points docked while on probation).**

As you took the time to read about Nascar like me, to take your mind elsewhere just for a moment, we still pray for Boston and all of us as a Nation to back our fellow people.