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JENSEN: Where’s The Hate?
Written by: Tom Jensen   
11/07/2007
Avondale, Ariz.
 
Johnson and Gordon: maybe too friendly a rivalry? (LAT photo) MORE NASCAR PHOTOS » More Photos

I've spent the last few weeks trying to put my finger on what's been missing in this year's Chase for the Nextel Cup and think I've finally come up with it: Rage.

There's just no hating go on on the racetrack anymore, just two best friends battling for a title with stern team orders from the boss to keep the meter firmly pegged on Kumbaya 24/7.

Now, understand, I'm not dissing Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon, who along with Tony Stewart are the three dominant drivers of this generation. And I have the utmost respect for their car owner, Rick Hendrick, who has built an incredible winning machine since taking his first title in 1995.

But as racing's greatest living promoter, the esteemed Humpy Wheeler will tell you, racing, like wrasslin', needs heroes and it needs villains, guys who are polarizing figures who get everybody talking and arguing.

When all you've got in the title mix are guys who are well groomed, wine connoisseurs who never in their lives have uttered the phrase, "just one of them racin' deals," well, the universe is seriously out of whack.

No, what a championship requires – demands, in fact – is rage: Anger, frustration and even out and out hatred, two guys who'd rather drink a gallon of 108 octane racing fuel than let someone pry the championship from their fingers. Championships need the kind of rancor you got with Petty vs. Allison or Waltrip vs. Yarborough back in the day, not two guys praising each other like it was infomercial for a juicer.

Championship should be bare-knuckle, take-no-prisoners, kick-the-other-guy-in-the-groin fights. Let the best man win? No. Let the best man kick the living stuffing out of the other guy and stomp him when he's down for good measure.

You knew sooner or later this would come around to Earnhardt, didn't you?

On the plane out to Phoenix, I kept thinking about this race in 1990. Mark Martin, in just his third year with Roush Racing came into Phoenix with a 44-point lead over Earnhardt with two races to go. Martin was still a young buck at the time and Earnhardt was still the Intimidator, the cocky sumbitch who talked smack to anyone and everyone in his way, but more importantly backed it up.
Earnhardt and Martin...now there was a rivalry to talk about. (LAT photo) » More Photos

The day before the race, NASCAR brought Martin and Earnhardt into the tiny PIR media center for the obligatory two-races-to-go-in-the-championship press conference. Right at the start, Earnhardt said something to the effect, of, "Hey, Mark, tell you what we should do: Forget the fans, forget the TV cameras, forget the media, you and I will go to Atlanta, race for 50 laps, come in and do a shot of whiskey, run 50 more laps, do another shot and keep going until one of us drops. Last man standing wins."

Martin turned white as a ghost. He had battled insanely hard to make it back to the then-Winston Cup Series, after having to sell off his own team when a sponsor flaked on him in 1983. After that, Martin had gone home to his native Arkansas, won another ASA title
and cleaned his act up considerably, losing both his youthful cockiness and some of the bad habits that went with it. He gave up alcohol altogether and became one of the most devoted fitness fanatics in the garage, traits he maintains to this day.

And here was Earnhardt, throwing demon alcohol back in Martin's face and taunting him with it. It was cruel and unusual punishment for a guy who didn't deserve it.

And it worked, just as Earnhardt knew it would.

Did the display when any good sportsmanship awards? Of course not. But every fan had an opinion on Earnhardt vs. Martin, every fan took sides and the bench racing flowed as freely as the cold beer in seedy bars from Daytona to Darlington.

When the race came, Earnhardt led the final 272 of 312 laps. Martin gambled on tires on the final pit stop and fell from fifth to 10th, crashing on the final lap as Earnhardt won the race and took the points lead.

In all the times I've been to Bristol and Talladega and other tracks, I've never as fierce or as rabid a crowd in the stands as in Phoenix that day. After the races, fans screamed and howled so long and loud I honestly thought a riot was coming. Tensions were at a peak because the sides were so firmly split. It was Earnhardt vs. Martin, Chevy vs. Ford. The car owners, Richard Childress and Jack Roush detested each other and there was bad blood all year long between them. This was a smackdown race, and it was Earnhardt who did the smacking and Martin who got hit.

The following week – NASCAR had these things called "off weeks" back then – Earnhardt delivered the knockout punch to Martin and Roush. The Ford boys brought six cars for Martin to test at Atlanta Motor Speedway in a three-day session, including one from the Robert Yates Racing stable that belonged to Davey Allison.

The black No. 3 hauler showed up at the track in the midst of the Roush test and Earnhardt did one flying lap. One lap. He then pronounced the car ready, his crew loaded it on the trailer and that was that.

You know the rest. Earnhardt went on to finish third in the race and Martin sixth, the Man in Black winning his fourth championship by 26 points.

Most fans loved Earnhardt, but a lot hated him, too. Regardless of sides, though, everyone talked about him.

The Hendrick lovefest undoubtedly will continue this weekend in Phoenix, next week in Homestead and onto the banquet stage in New York. Gordon and Johnson will praise each other and their respective crews and crew chiefs and how they've pushed each other to the limit all season long.

But you know what?

I'd still love to see a brawl, two guys who genuinely can't stand each other throw down instead of two guys who share the same garage, the same shop crew and the same owner.


The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED Channel