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ROBERTS: First Loser
Written by: John Roberts   
06/26/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
Quick – which NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver finished second two weeks ago at Michigan?
John Roberts is the host of NASCAR RaceDay, NASCAR Victory Lane and NASCAR Smarts on SPEED. (Photo: SPEED) ยป More Photos

You don’t remember, do you?

There is an old story about two brothers who grew up in southern Virginia. One became a farmer and the other Vice President of the United States. We never heard about either of them again and for one reason. Finishing second doesn’t mean anything and nowhere is that more evident than in the world of NASCAR.

Many of our co-workers at the race track like to poke fun at some of SPEED because each weekend we repeat the statement, “If NASCAR Sprint Cup racing was easy, everybody’d be doing it.” But this bears repeating because when you examine the numbers, you see why NASCAR is called the most competitive form of motor sports in the world.

Consider how many guys play in the NBA or in the MLB on any given day - several hundred spread out all over the country. But on Sunday afternoons in NASCAR, only 43 have the honor and privilege of competing at the highest level, all at the same time and at the same venue.

Quite often in qualifying, less than a second determines who makes the show and who goes home. Less than a tenth of a second often separates the winner from the runner-up.

Our good friend Kyle Petty often says, “Who cares who finished second!” He’s right but that concept is so wrong in some ways. Drivers beat 41 other guys and no one cares because they didn’t beat 42. They race all season long and do better in points than more than 50 others and nobody notices for the simple fact that one guy performed better. This is a tough, humbling and often cruel business.

Ask Mark Martin about finishing second. He has had championship-caliber seasons and finishes second in points, and instead of being called the champ, he’s the answer to a trivia question.

If “ifs”
and “buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas. But, an “if” in NASCAR can mean the difference between a brilliant career and one that slipped away. One of the best (or worst) examples of this was Regan Smith at Talladega last season. NASCAR ruled that Tony Stewart won but had Smith been declared the winner, things would have been much different for a very deserving good, young racecar driver. If Smith had won at Talladega, he would have become a different human being in the eyes of the NASCAR world - a winner.

This is a very extreme “if,” but does Smith then become marketable enough as a winner to secure more sponsorship for DEI? Does DEI then stand on more solid ground with two winning drivers and not have to merge with Ganassi? It’s just a thought but definitely a possibility.

It has been said that the longest inch in the world is the inch between an NBA player who is 6’11” and one who is 7’0”. But perhaps the greatest distance in all of motor sports is the distance between first and second place in NASCAR.

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

John Roberts is the host of NASCAR RaceDay, NASCAR Victory Lane and Tradin’ Paint on SPEED. He also hosts and reports from the garage on NASCAR Live and Go or Go Home and has been part of the FOX family since 2001. Roberts graduated from James Madison University and jokingly still considers himself a prospect for a top-rated college basketball team, namely the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.

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