A couple of years ago I wrote a piece for another publication condemning Bowman Gray Stadium’s evolution from great racing venue to the world’s largest cheap-o wrestling arena. I received a lot of hateful comments and tweets for my words and although it was fun, it was ultimately disheartening to see that people defended that sort of behavior. It definitely put things in perspective regarding what “fans” considered to be “exciting” in the racing world, and it didn’t look good.
Remarkably, after the initial buzz died down things at Bowman Gray seemed to go silent, with ridiculous on-track disputes going back to the usual “I’m-angry-so-let’s-play-bumper-tag-in-the-infield” temperament. That is until Saturday when Joe Ryan Osborne of Kannapolis was taken into custody by the Winston-Salem police after hitting another crew member with his car after doing a donut in the middle of a group of spectators and crew members.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal, Sgt. Allison Marion of the Winston-Salem Police Department said on Sunday that Osborne was charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and that he would be scheduled to appear in court next month.
Marion, who was one of the arresting officers on the scene Saturday night also added that “He was released with a written promise to appear in court.”
Let that sink in a bit.
There’s a guy, in a race car which (very obviously) weighs more than a normal human being, spinning his car around while in the middle of a group of people. Think about that. Think about the absurdity in that. Think about the absolute, unabashed stupidity in that action.
Is it because there was actually some good, drama-free racing going on earlier in the evening? Spectators who were there on Saturday were quick to point out that it was a tame evening at the track (which may or may not be saying something).
If this was one isolated incident, then it would be easier to be angry at Osborne. But the truth is simple: Why am I not surprised, given the location of this incident? Should we even care, given that Bowman Gray has become the least dignified track in the country right now?
I use those words deliberately. This is a racetrack that has the moniker of “Madhouse,” due to the craziness that occurs there. Let’s not forget that Madhouse was the name of the A&E program that has actually been off the air for a while now (I get the idea someone forgot to tell that to the guys at Bowman Gray) and has seemingly ruined the track and crowd there.
To elaborate, the track now thrives not on good hard racing, but on fighting, car chases, crashes, and blood lusting fans screaming down epithets and curses giving their least-favorite driver the double bird every time they drive by. Of course, I know that’s not every fan in attendance, just the majority. But it irks me, irks the living daylights out of me, for that majority of fans to scream (well, tweet) to me that that’s the sort of thing this racing was built on. That this sort of nonsense was “old school cool” and how drivers supposedly handled their business with each other.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love watching drivers and crews fight. I pointed that out in that piece for the other publication, but I still ended up with insults being lobbed my way calling into question my sexual preference, political leanings, country of origin, so on and so forth. So let me be clearer this time: I love watching the fights. Pause. I love it when scores aren’t settled on track or by drivers ramming each other on pit road. Pause. I love it when the two combatants exit their cars and approach each other man to (wo)man. Pause. I love when the combatants exchange fists and/or insults. Pause.
Jeff Gordon did it right at Texas Motor Speedway in November 2014. He pulled up to Brad Keselowski’s Ford, got out, and approached him. He tried talking to him, then proceeded to stomp him a new mudhole. No risky behavior, no trashing perfectly good race cars. He got out like a man, approached his foe like a man, and handled his business like a man.
So all this talk about drivers holding up races while chasing other drivers through the pits or drivers cutting donuts in the middle of a large group of people being “manly” and “old school cool” is a joke, a fool’s argument that should be dropped. Good hard racing isn’t cars getting destroyed by angry drivers and if a supposed race fan only goes to see these fights then they need to re-evaluate their love of the sport.
More so, racing became great because of great racing. So damn this talk of “it gets in touch with our sport’s roots” or “our racing forefathers did the same thing.” Our racing forefathers became great because of what they did behind the wheel to win races. Bowman Gray Stadium is a short track that I would love to visit some day. It seems like it has it’s fair share of good racing every so often. But it always gets overshadowed by something such as a winner getting popped in the face in Victory Lane by a fellow competitor’s wife or an angry driver getting drug alongside another racer’s hot rod.
The track promoters need to crack down on this. Either that or turn it into a mud bullring and host weekly demo derbies. On-track drama should be like the Sprint Cup finish at Phoenix early this year, or the last lap at Richmond in May. It shouldn’t be a high-octane episode of Jerry Springer.
In a way, Bowman Gray had a hand in this incident by thriving on this sort thing. They have no issue stopping races just so a couple of angry drivers can goof off and ram each other under caution, and they don’t have an issue with drivers acting up and running out of control. They’re not stiff or consistent in their punishments. That should change; they should start banning drivers for life. Let the offending drivers take their no-handling attitudes elsewhere.
