Pocono, home of mountains, endangered ducks, heart shaped bath tubs, and the location of the latest victory for a very very gutsy young man named Brad Keselowski.

[media-credit name=”Kirk Schroll” align=”alignright” width=”273″][/media-credit]The Good Sam RV Insurance 500 was delayed by rain for 90 minutes. For 90 minutes, Joey Logano and his crew chief Zippy did the rain dance. They would have probably sacrificed small cut out crew chief effigies had they been able to get them for it to continue raining. But it didn’t. And when the green flag fell again it was Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch showing the way.

A late race caution as a result of contact between Juan Pablo Montoya and Kasey Kahne would set up the final plays of the race. It would be the Blue Deuce up against the M&M’s Toyota of Kyle Busch and the No. 48 of 5 time and reigning Champ Jimmie Johnson. Johnson dove to the bottom of the track making it three wide and challenging for the lead into one. But the Blue Deuce would hold him off and Kyle Busch would hold his ground, leaving the 48 to slip back to 3^rd and ultimately 4^th. Once the nose of the Miller Lite Dodge Charger cleared into clean air it was smooth sailing. Well as smooth as it can be with a driver with a broken left ankle and multiple bruises lacerations and incredible back pain.

Brad Keselowski proved he was everything and more that his mentor, Dale Earnhardt Jr., thought he was back in 2007 when he signed him to drive his Nationwide Series Car full time. Keselowski never looked back then and he never looked back today. For that matter even with the painful reminder of the broken ankle that had to be drained of fluid and blood during the red flag, he never looked back to Road Atlanta where he broke the ankle hitting a non safer barrier on Wednesday.

In victory lane, Keselowski showed he had more than just a lot of guts, he also had humility. “I am no hero. Heroes are those guys that died in Afghanistan yesterday. I just drive race cars. This win is for them.”

3 Time Champion Darrell Waltrip, tweeted about the young driver, “If you think you can, you will, if you think you can’t, you won’t! Great drivers rise above adversity, matter a fact, they thrive on it!”

Keselowski earned that victory. Flat out. He and his team worked for it. He claimed it, and he then he dedicated to people he felt were more deserving of hero status than he was.

But in the celebration something was over looked. Something that perhaps NASCAR was glad was over looked, the failure of the series to protect the drivers in accordance with its Driver Safety First initiative.

The driver safety first policy has brought us a lot of incredible things that have made the sport safer for the drivers, S.A.F.E.R. barriers for one. As a matter of fact those barriers are so important that Steve O’Donnell of NASCAR told me, “We don’t race on tracks without S.A.F.E.R. barriers.”

They may not race on tracks without them but teams are forced to test on tracks that don’t have them. Teams are forced to go to these tracks and test because of the no testing rule put in place in 2008 by NASCAR.

NASCAR said at the time that it was a cost containment measure that was requested by the team owners. Yet the teams continue to test at tracksthat are outside of the watchful eye of NASCAR.

A lack of testing has lead to a decrease in competition according to Tony Stewart and Rusty Wallace. Both of whom are past champions and team owners in the sport.

With the current situation of empty seats and follow the leader racing one has to ask what is being gained here. There is no cost containment when the teams test anyway. There is no cost containment when they spend millions of dollars on computer programs and engineers to create ways of getting around the testing ban.

It’s not bad enough that the drivers have an increased chance of getting hurt for the sake of being competitive on the race track. Once they do get injured they put others at risk by driving injured. In the protective boot, Keselowski could not work the brakes and clutch the way he needed to because he couldn’t feel the pedal. It was illustrated when he slid through his pit box on the first pit stop of the day.

Other situations of drivers hurt but that raced anyway include, Denny Hamlin following Knee surgery during an off week, Kyle Petty with a femur fracture, Mark Martin with an injured leg, Ken Schrader in a flap jacket that impaired movement, and the biggest Dale Earnhardt with a broken vertebra in his neck. These are not the only examples but they are some of the most vivid.

It’s time for NASCAR to look at the big picture. If you are going to put driver’s safety first that means it’s always first. That means that you can’t look the other direction when teams go to test for Watkins Glen at Road Atlanta and a young rising star hits a concrete steel reinforced wall without a S.A.F.E.R. barrier and then is dependant on two other drivers to assist him from the car because they reached him before the safety team did.

You can not claim safety first when you allow an injured and obviously impaired driver to compete. You can not claim safety first when teams must test to be competitive and yet you prevent them from testing where the testing would be done at the most up to date tracks with modern safety features. You can not claim safety first when they can not test where the testing would be the most beneficial to all at the track they are going to race at.

If teams were allowed to test at the track they were going to race at, it would improve the competition on that track. If the competition improved at places like California, Pocono and Sonoma for example, perhaps their ticket sales and TV ratings would go up. It’s a win/win situation.

If the teams were allowed to test at the track they were going to race on the information from the car’s black box would not be lost for other teams also competing on that same track when there is a serious accident. But because Keselowski’s wreck was not a NASCAR sanctioned track that information is available to the team involved and it’s drivers and engineers only.

So why is it, NASCAR continues to hold to a policy that is in itself a giant loop hole? Why do they continue to hold to a policy that is at best ineffective at accomplishing the task it was meant to accomplish?

This is the second safety issue within the last two weeks within NASCAR’s upper echelon of competition. In both cases the drivers were lucky to escape with their lives. It’s time for NASCAR to become proactive and not reactive. It is the policy of wait and see and if it happens to be retired. It is time for NASCAR to live up to the promises and policies they already have in place and to change the outdated ones that don’t work. If for no other reason than the world has lost enough heroes and champions, we don’t need to lose anymore.

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Congratulations to Ricky Stenhouse Jr on his Nationwide Victory in Iowa. The quote of the week came from the NNS broadcast when Ken Schrader commented on Stenhouse Jr being upset with team mate Carl Edwards, “We used to get turned over and on fire before we got mad, now it takes a tire donut”.  Which leads us to the reminder that racing is still a full contact sport.

Congratulations to Kevin Harvick on his Camping World Truck Series Victory in Pocono.

Congratulations to Brad Keselowski on his victory in the Sprint Cup Series Race at Pocono. It was an inspiring and gutsy show of why fans look at their favorite driver as a hero. It is also the perfect illustration of drivers as athletes.

That said, to all the competitors in all the series thanks for giving us everything you have to give, you are our heroes. Most importantly, thanks to all the families who shared their loved ones with us so we could cheer our favorite driver and favorite teams. You are the true heroes of the sport and we are forever in your debt.