NASCAR confirmed late Saturday that Kurt Busch has lost both appeals and will not appear in the Daytona 500. (CNN: Ex-NASCAR champ Kurt Busch loses appeals on eve of Daytona 500)
The charge is he grabbed his girlfriend by the throat and slammed her into a wall three times. No-one was present at the time but the court, presumably, found her story more credible and agreed that is what happened. This was not a criminal procedure but rather domestic.
It's a stalemate now with him calling her a slut and her calling him a monster. Nothin' comin' behind this but one ferociously ugly asset split and what happens with NASCAR is your guess.
Assuming he did it, I figure he ought to atone in some reasonable way and be permitted to drive again. I don't know what atonement people would consider reasonable but I don't think what he did warranted banning him for life. It is an extreme punishment for something that was a precedent to an extreme crime but the extreme crime did not happen. Therefore, I don't believe an extreme punishment is warranted. It would be an extreme punishment as he makes a staggering amount of money and there's the speed. No more 200 mph.
Maybe I'm wrong on that as he's shown he's got it in him to really damage a woman so what's appropriate to make very damn sure he understands this will not happen again.
All of the above assumes he did it. I don't know that. Nothin' but ugliness coming behind this.
Kyle Busch is out due to an accident yesterday so this is a most unusual start for the Daytona 500. (ESPN: Kyle Busch breaks leg, foot in crash)
With the broken leg, I could see him racing with a walking cast. With the broken feet, I seriously doubt it. They're very hard to fix and I still whine about mine twenty years later. If he races again this year it will be in major pain. You can bet money doctors will tell him no.
This sucks hard for both drivers as the Daytona 500 is IT these days. The Indy 500 has been fading off while the Daytona 500 looks to be the King. It must be insane in Daytona right about now, everybody getting ready to go racing.
There is some editorial in the news as to whether racetracks should be ordered to convert barriers to 'soft walls' that work something like the water barriers sometimes used on highways. Of course they should do it as this costs them money but failing to do it may cost a driver his or her life. What decision is there to make.
The charge is he grabbed his girlfriend by the throat and slammed her into a wall three times. No-one was present at the time but the court, presumably, found her story more credible and agreed that is what happened. This was not a criminal procedure but rather domestic.
It's a stalemate now with him calling her a slut and her calling him a monster. Nothin' comin' behind this but one ferociously ugly asset split and what happens with NASCAR is your guess.
Assuming he did it, I figure he ought to atone in some reasonable way and be permitted to drive again. I don't know what atonement people would consider reasonable but I don't think what he did warranted banning him for life. It is an extreme punishment for something that was a precedent to an extreme crime but the extreme crime did not happen. Therefore, I don't believe an extreme punishment is warranted. It would be an extreme punishment as he makes a staggering amount of money and there's the speed. No more 200 mph.
Maybe I'm wrong on that as he's shown he's got it in him to really damage a woman so what's appropriate to make very damn sure he understands this will not happen again.
All of the above assumes he did it. I don't know that. Nothin' but ugliness coming behind this.
Kyle Busch is out due to an accident yesterday so this is a most unusual start for the Daytona 500. (ESPN: Kyle Busch breaks leg, foot in crash)
With the broken leg, I could see him racing with a walking cast. With the broken feet, I seriously doubt it. They're very hard to fix and I still whine about mine twenty years later. If he races again this year it will be in major pain. You can bet money doctors will tell him no.
This sucks hard for both drivers as the Daytona 500 is IT these days. The Indy 500 has been fading off while the Daytona 500 looks to be the King. It must be insane in Daytona right about now, everybody getting ready to go racing.
There is some editorial in the news as to whether racetracks should be ordered to convert barriers to 'soft walls' that work something like the water barriers sometimes used on highways. Of course they should do it as this costs them money but failing to do it may cost a driver his or her life. What decision is there to make.
2 comments:
The Kurt Busch situation is a tough one. My view, though, is that punishment is the court's to decide, not NASCAR's. Same is true with the NFL.
On the topic of barriers, the Thompson Speedway in CT has (or at least, used to have, dirt walls. The only time I ever saw a driver get killed there was when Corky Cookman's accelerator stuck going into turn 1 and he went up and out of the ballpark. He literally launched over the wall and crashed beyond it. So yes, I'm sure there are ways to improve the barriers. One note, though, is that, in the case of the Sprint series cars, the barriers are there more to protect the spectators since stands completely line the tracks. The challenge is designing a barrier that can absorb the impact at 200 MPH without killing (or seriously injuring) the driver, while still keeping the car on the track and not in the stands.
It's a tough one as NASCAR and NFL have to protect that brand name and can't have woman beaters or dog fighters, etc smelling up the place. There's not a good answer when that kind of stink goes up.
In this case it was a concrete wall and it was a good distance into the infield so officials maybe thought cars would lose enough speed that it didn't need attention. There's only so safe you can make things when someone will drive a car at 200 mph. It's a fundamentally dangerous thing.
This is the same thing that killed Senna in F1 as he went straight into a wall and instant death. No chance whatsoever. Many say he was the best.
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