Is NASCAR Being Scripted?

NASCAR fans will be the first to admit that they love the fueds between drivers that threaten to erupt into physical confrontation during any given race. Fans love nothing more than to debate whether or not thier driver may have deliberately bumped into another car and caused a wreck. The NASCAR Nation has an insatiable appettite for sound bites of an angry driver verbally bashing his competition and race officials. The fans claim that this stuff is what makes the sport so exciting.

Now one of the sport's biggest stars has openly accused NASCAR of 'staging' races to ensure a dramatic finish each week. Two-time champion Tony Stewart compared NASCAR to professional wrestling and accused it of using bogus caution flags to shape race finishes. He made his comments on his weekly radio show.

Specifiacally, Steward hints that NASCAR may be calling Caution when its not really needed in order to force a tighter race near the finish. When the race is under caution, driver speeds are restricted and allows trailing cars to close the gap on thier competition. This effectively prevents a driver from pulling ahead of the pack and running away with the race.

Saturday night, NASCAR signaled Caution four seperate times for debris on the track. Race officials a careful to watch for such debris for safety reasons. A fragment of sheet metal can be deadly if run over by a car at full speed. Debris could slice a tire and cause an accident, or it could become airborne and pose a threat to anyone in the facility.

Stewart said on his radio show, "I guess NASCAR thinks 'Hey, wrestling worked, and it was for the most part staged, so I guess it's going to work in racing, too."

Is this just a case of a driver getting frustrated and spewing his mouth? Or is there really something to the theory that NASCAR might be taking active measures to impact the race outcome? If its true, then the sport will be forever crippled in the eyes of fans and will be relagated to the dustbin of television-sports failures like Roller Derby and American Gladiatiors.