Fan's Eye View ~ The Age Old Question Of Questioning Old Age7/16/2013 |
Well, I had a feeling I was going to have to write this
one. It’s going to be rather short, and
maybe not so sweet. Let us go ahead and get this one out of the way right
now. If Joey Logano and Morgan Shepherd
do not make contact on the track at New Hampshire, we are not even talking
about it. But it did happen, so here we
are, and the comments I see and hear are fairly disturbing to me. A comment I read supporting Shepherd and his
right to race said something about Shepherd has forgotten more about racing
than Joey will ever know. The follow up
comment was mean spirited and said “Yeah, it’s called Alzheimer’s.” That’s just great.
You stay classy, NASCAR fans. So, let’s get back to Shepherd and his right to race, shall
we? I don’t have a problem with it, personally. Many of you know my philosophy on money, and
that is a person should be able to seek and earn as much money as they can for
what they do, as long as it is within the lines of the law. Football players are making fifteen million
dollars a year? Yes, it is a large sum of money, but if that player can command
that kind of salary, more power to you, my friend. (And I would be your friend…just sayin’…) If any of us
wanted a raise at our own places of employment, I’m certainly not going to
stand in your way, and I would hope that you wouldn’t stand in mine just
because you didn’t feel like I was worth it in your eyes. So, who are we, as fans, to try to determine which driver is
able to perform his or her job or not, and base our findings on age alone? That seems like discrimination, folks, and
we’re not going to have any of that around here…or at least I would hope we
wouldn’t have it. My
friend PattyKay Lilley wrote a column here just last week, and it was about Red
Farmer. It was spawned because PK
had just heard that Red Farmer, all 81 years of him, was going to race again…or
still. Of all the comments posted on
that article, I found not a single on which said, “Red is too old to drive and
should retire.” Now, even in the event
that a comment such as that was born from that article, well, trust me, I know
we all have our opinions, are entitled to them, and apparently they are
like…hearts. Everybody has one. But some things are not for the race fan to
decide. It’s just not our place. By the way, Hershel McGriff, in 2012, ran a
series race in Sonoma. He was 84 years
old at the time. NASCAR drivers are not employees, either. It should not be up to NASCAR to determine
that someone is too old to drive a race car, unless a physical or other test
has not been passed. At the start of each season, a driver has a physical, and if
they pass, game on. Then, each week,
they have to put together a race car, and do so within the rules of the
sport. If the car passes, then, game on. And then, there’s this thing at NASCAR
races. It usually happens a day, maybe
two days ahead of the race itself. It’s
called “qualifying.” Drivers in cars run
around the track and figure out where they are going to start. Once that process is complete, those who make
it into the race are now, say it with me…”qualified,” and…game on. But apparently that might be too hard for some folks to deal
with, and the system breaks down. The
fact is that Morgan Shepherd right now is a better race car driver than I will
ever be, so it is certainly not going to be me who says, “Yo,
Morgan…time to hang up the boots, babe.”
Nor should it be that of anyone else, either, unless the preliminary
qualifications are not met. Because the contact between Joey Logano and Morgan Shepherd
led to the effective end of each driver’s day, the comments we are hearing and
seeing are about Shepherd’s age and his ability to drive a race car. Kids, race car drivers crash all the
time. It is an unfortunate side effect
of the sport we love to love. This one
is a hot one, however, because one of the drivers was a septuagenarian. If it was Cole Whitt in the place of
Shepherd, the comments would be “Oh, Logano got taken out by a guy in a lapped
car,” and not, “Oh, Logano got taken out by a young guy in a lapped
car.” Again, if Morgan Shepherd and Joey Logano do not make
contact on the track in New Hampshire, we’re not even talking about it. It happens several times throughout the
year. A car is laps down, and something
happens where that car being out on the track results in a contender’s day
being shortened. The only difference
between those weeks and this one is the age of the drivers involved. And as a little note to Mr. Logano who has apparently never slid his car up the track into another driver...
Until next time my friends…
Feel free to leave comments below, and be sure to follow me @RaceFansJim on Twitter, because sometimes I give stuff away!