Pit Pass Radio

The melee at the end of the Centurion Boats at the Glen last Sunday was one of the worst road course wrecks we’ve seen in a long time. Hardly ever do you see an incident at the Glen (or Sonoma) that results in so many mangled race cars. It’s very fortunate that none of the drivers were hurt badly. There have been many opinions out there about the cause of the crash. Jimmy Spencer said on NASCAR Victory Lane that the wreck was clearly Michael McDowell’s fault in the double zero car. Michael Waltrip, owner of the #00 who also has a race review show on Speed, predictably defended his driver.

“David Gilliland just lost his cool there. It happens. He just lost it.” What? Wait, am I missing something? Granted the replays didn’t show everything, and I certainly wasn’t there as Mikey was, but come on. There appeared to be some door banging getting into the final turn there at the Glen (some call it turn 11) and coming off the corner, the #00 of McDowell veered left and drove the #38 of Gilliland hard into the tire barrier. McDowell was able to continue on whereas Gilliland was bounced back onto the racetrack directly in front of oncoming cars at a very narrow section of the track, which was immediately blocked with wrecking cars. Gilliland was pounded very hard several times in the passenger-side door by the likes of Max Papis in the #70, Joe Nemechek in the #78 and others.

Now I know that they are having another tough season and things are not looking great for MWR right now, but please, let’s not turn a blind eye to the obvious. Both drivers said afterwards (after seeing the video in the NASCAR hauler) that the incident was your basic “racing deal”. My opinion is that Gilliland is being generous. He was on the outside of the turn, side-by-side with McDowell, when he was run into the tire barrier. I guarantee if this had been Tony Stewart or Jeff Gordon who had gotten slammed into the wall they would’ve given the rookie, McDowell, an ear full.

Look, we all have our own varied opinions on these things (thank goodness) and I may be totally wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. By the way, it’s very ironic, don’t you think, that McDowell was replaced by Mike Skinner almost immediately after the race…

Oh yeah, that’s been planned for weeks and had nothing to do with the wreck, I know.