Prestige of All-Star Race heightens competitors' drive to win it

Prestige of All-Star Race heightens competitors' drive to win it

By Matt Crossman

Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(May 20, 2011)

CONCORD , N.C. —There's an old saying in NASCAR: Win or bring home the steering wheel (and nothing else) trying. More than any other event, that applies to Saturday's Sprint All-Star Race.

 With the race comes an expectation, a hope, a yearning, that someone will dump someone for the win, for the pride, for the glory, for the checkers, and above all, for the million bucks. The thought is that after weeks of racing conservatively for fear of falling in the ever-important points race, drivers will race like maniacs, unshackled by the burden of a miscue destroying their Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup chances. It's a source of endless prerace chatter as drivers contemplate their strategies for the 10-lap shootout at the end of the 100-lap event.

 But for all the hand-wringing, Mark Martin says in his 21 years in the All-Star Race, nobody has ever intentionally wrecked anybody for the win. Which leads to the question: Do drivers race any differently in the All-Star Race than they do every other week?

 There are three schools of thought on this.

 First, Martin: "We race all out all the time. It's hard to try harder than everything you got."

 Second, Kyle Busch: "You can be a lot more aggressive."

 Third, Ryan Newman: "You can't believe marketing. That's just marketing."

 Here's the truth: There will be no racing for fifth place because not even a driver's mom cares if he finishes fifth in the All-Star Race. But with no points at stake, drivers generally will be more willing to take chances they wouldn't otherwise take late in the race when they are going for the win. At which point a driver will come face to face with the moral ambiguity of intentionally knocking another driver out of the way for the win. Some drivers would do it to anybody, some drivers would do it only to drivers they think would do it to them (or already had done it to them), and some drivers never would do it under any circumstances.

 It sounds backward, but drivers are willing to take more risks to win a race that means nothing than they are to take risks to win a race that means something. In the context of the season, a win in the All-Star Race carries no value. But in the context of a career, it's invaluable. Outside of the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400, this is the race win most coveted by drivers. Martin says he remembers his two All-Star wins as vividly as any of his 40 points wins and more vividly than most of them.

 There's a direct relationship between how proud a driver is of a win and how much other drivers want that win. The fact drivers want to win the All-Star Race so desperately adds to the perception that it's an anything goes race. Whether it actually is an anything goes race is less important than the perception that it is. And nobody pushes that perception more than Charlotte Motor Speedway. Track president Marcus Smith has promised to pay any fine a driver receives for fighting during the race.

 And what would be better than if those fines involved Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch? The feuding drivers du jour were fined $25,000 apiece and put on probation after a late-race wreck and post-race altercation two weeks ago in Darlington . Last weekend at Dover , both made it clear they didn't like the other and never would. The problem is that they are so similar—stubborn, short-tempered, hyper-competitive smart-alecks. There was a cease-fire between them on Friday; both were asked about racing against the other, and both danced around real answers. Maybe they'll let their bumpers do the talking.

 The two passed each other in the media center. Harvick's media time preceded Busch's, and Harvick was exiting as Busch arrived. The two did not speak to each other, acknowledge each other or even look at each other.

 "I've forgiven and forgotten," Busch said.

 He said it like he meant it. Let's hope that on Saturday night, he drives like he didn't.