Ambrose v. Mears: My Take

I’ll start by saying I didn’t see the race at Richmond on Saturday.  I was in Providence, RI for the ECA Convention as part of the social media team from Slippery Rock University.

If you did watch it, you’ll know there was a fight in the garage between Marcos Ambrose and Casey Mears following the race.  I’m not sure what the reason for the fight was, but all I know is that NASCAR should not punish either of the drivers too harshly.

Photo courtesy Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Ambrose punched Mears in the face, and it looked like a pretty good hit.  But we all know that NASCAR is going to use it in their advertisements in the future.  Did anyone notice how similar it looked to Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison?  

NASCAR wants to let drivers do their thing, but they don’t want them to go too far.  What Ambrose did crossed a line.  You can’t just turn the Sprint Cup garage into Fight Club.  

Fans love short track racing because it leads to fights in the infield.  Fans love to see the drivers show their true emotions after the race has finished.  NASCAR knows what the fans like (sometimes) and uses stuff like this during their ad campaigns on a regular basis.  

But if they decide to punish Ambrose or Mears, they need to be more lenient than they have been in the past.  NASCAR will surely use the “actions detrimental to stock car racing” defense, but if they continually use it in marketing materials it sends mixed messages.

What Ambrose and Mears did was a lot safer than what some other drivers have done.  Remember when Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski had their feud?  It’s amazing they both didn’t get killed.  They fought each other in their cars, which is not only dangerous to those driving, but also everyone around them.

We could talk about this forever and not solve anything.  But if NASCAR wanted to stop their free fall in attendance and ratings, they would let the drivers retaliate against one another off the track.  A couple shoves?  All good.  A slap in the face?  Bring it on.  But a punch to the face just can’t be ignored, and understandably deserves punishment.  I just hope NASCAR looks at this and doesn’t punish them too harshly.