The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [60]
Jeff Gordon had dominated the first half of the race and appeared to be in good shape. Gordon hit a chunk of rubber from a tire off Dale Jarrett’s car, however, and that threw off his engine the rest of the way. On lap 123, Earnhardt finally passed Gordon. “With twenty-seven laps to go, teammates Jeremy Mayfield and Rusty Wallace were hooked up and preparing to draft past Earnhardt when John Andretti and Robert Pressley crashed together, bringing out a caution,” Hinton wrote. “All the leaders pitted under the yellow, and Earnhardt got back onto the track first.” Hinton heard Gordon’s plaintive radio transmission during a round of pit stops: “Damn! If that Three [Earnhardt] ain’t speedin’ off the pit road, I don’t know what is!”
Hinton continued:
For safety, NASCAR now requires speed limits on the pit road, usually about fifty-five mph, and officials used radar guns to enforce it. But pit road speed checks had become very similar to ball-and-strike calls in baseball. Could NASCAR—on this twentieth try by Earnhardt, on this fiftieth anniversary of the first NASCAR race—be giving Earnhardt a little bit larger strike zone to pitch? Perhaps. But it was a judgment call, and not blatant massaging of the situation.
MY OPINION
Superstars—real, honest-to-God superstars—get calls in every sport. Very few NBA Finals games were decided when a megastar was called for traveling in the final seconds. Part of the reason is that elite stars don’t commit infractions at the worst possible moment. But more likely, the legends know how to get away with things that give them a little bit more of an advantage. Calling speeding on “The Intimidator” off the pit road—in that situation—would not have been the right call. We don’t live in a perfect world, but sometimes our live sporting events just happen to turn out, well, perfect.
1994 BRICKYARD 400
Here’s another race that was a little too close to how a perfect script would end: Jeff Gordon’s 1994 victory at the Brickyard 400. There was more than a little animosity that stock cars were there in Indianapolis for the inaugural Brickyard 400. Gordon was a young, up-and-coming superstar, who happened to have grown up in Pittsboro, Indiana, a tiny city about fifteen miles outside Indianapolis.
Let’s just say that the newly-turned twenty-three-year-old Gordon, the youngest driver in the field, was an appropriate choice to win the race. How storybook could you get? I mean, Gordon was a guy who grew up seeking autographs from drivers like four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears. Who better to give stock car racing a needed push in the Hoosier city?
The race wasn’t exceptionally close. It was written the next day that the final four laps were a victory parade for Gordon, whose only other win to that point had come in May in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, North Carolina.
Before the start of the race, the crowd was eerily quiet, unlike it usually was at the 500. But it didn’t take long for the race-happy fans in Indianapolis to embrace the first Winston Cup race held there, or its local hero.
Conspiracy theorists will say that the sport needed a victory by local hero Gordon. Others will counter with the argument that Gordon put forth after the race: “It’s tough to race on those tracks where all those guys have been racing so many years.” In other words, that particular track was new enough that all the great drivers were just learning the ropes and its nuances.
Gordon’s victory was widely celebrated in Pittsboro, with banners and a hero’s welcome. It was a perfect way for the inaugural Brickyard to end.
MY OPINION
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And where there’s a