Sometimes people like to tell me how stock car racing has changed. Sure, it has, but the first thing you have to realize about the modern race is that it's a television event. Naturally, the networks want to protect their interest, so to the announcers broadcasting these races, everybody is a nice guy.
It's the same way in baseball, basketball, and football. You can be a thief, a murderer, a gangster-you name it-and these guys up in the TV booth can't do anything but sing your praises.
"What a wonderful fellow," they say. "I had breakfast with him this morning," or "I met him in the hotel lobby last night," or "I sat in on a team meeting with him yesterday." You see what I mean. Everything seems to be painted peaches and cream.
They can't try reality. The guy they are talking about may be the same guy who tried to run his wife over in the driveway last week. Wonderful fellow, right? The kind of guy you'd like your daughter to bring home, right? Come on now, give me a break. We don't need that stuff on television. We need the truth.
But this is what television has done to racing. It's all show business. It's become a television event, with all the drivers and crewchiefs realizing their images are being beamed into millions of living rooms. The guys know this, and because they know it, some of the stuff they do to get on camera slays me.
During my era behind the wheel, the race was always more important than the driver. It still is, but they disguise it better.
One thing NASCAR did recently, and I agree with it, is stop drivers and crewmen from using profanity when they are talking to the media, or at least the radio and television media. This is not good for our sport, and they needed to bring a stop to it. I realize a lot of times people are mad when they climb out of a race car, or see their driver get the bad end of something that happened on the track.
Here we are with the television people in the booth talking about what a wonderful guy this is and how he goes to church every Sunday and gives to this and gives to that. Then he gets out of his race car and spits out about 20 curse words.
Our sport needs a good image, but it doesn't need the guys up in the booth making up stories about how clean and wonderful these people are all the time. That is carrying it a bit too far.
I realize I raced during a different era, but we had our good times and bad times. Most of the time, the print media told the truth about us and what was going on up front and behind the scenes.
For the most part, I just had a good time all the while I was driving a car. I enjoyed times away from the track, such as going out to dinner with Lynda and the family at night.