Time marches on

New button-down NASCAR far from its wild and crazy roots

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Ticker) -- For a sport deeply rooted in its hell-raising past, the present-day NASCAR doesn't live up to that reputation.

Stories about the "good old days" where drivers such as Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly would throw parties that lasted for days before climbing into a car and sweating out the alcohol contrast with the NASCAR Nextel Cup series, which has become a corporate collection of colorless participants.

Leave it to Darrell Waltrip to succinctly sum up the difference between past and present."

"We had wine for dinner," he said. "Now, they have wine with dinner."

NASCAR 2004 is virtually vice free. The circuit is coming dangerously close to sanitization, with few exceptions such as Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Smoking is no longer allowed inside the same media center where cartons of Winstons were distributed freely last season. That's because after a 33-year cigarette sponsorship of NASCAR's top division, Winston was replaced by wireless communication giant Nextel.

Drivers can be fined large amounts of money for using foul language, although NASCAR's television package allows nearly free access into the communications of a race team during the event. It's likely that same language would be heard if microphones were placed in the dugouts of baseball or the benches of the NFL and NBA.

The circuit is becoming a collection of colorless characters such as defending series champion Matt Kenseth and 2003 leading winner Ryan Newman. That's why Waltrip, a three-time former champion, is still the best interview, even though he is in the broadcasting booth instead of behind the wheel.

In Waltrip's day, drivers still had fun. They would slug it out on the track and sometimes after the race but they still had fun. Even when drivers didn't care for each other, they could still be found sitting on the back of each other's transporters, sharing war stories.

Today's NASCAR driver runs through the garage to get away from the throngs and either goes to the back of a secure office in the team transporter or to an elaborate motorhome in the drivers/owners lot.

The fun is clearly missing.

"It's hard to have a good time and do your job," Waltrip said. "We'd get our cars inspected; we'd cover the car up and go to the beach. We'd go to the liquor store and buy a case of beer and sit on the beach or go sit in the lounge at the hotel maybe until it was time to come back the next day."

As the sport has grown, so have the demands. But the legendary appeal of the sport has changed and if it continues in that direction, the sport will be homogenized.

"We could have had media day in a pup tent," Waltrip said. "You came down here to race and you went in the garage and worked on your car. They tried to hype it up and add TV. There wasn't the intensity that you have in the sport now. People are getting pulled in so many different directions; it's hard to have fun."

Waltrip was the best in the sport when he was on top of his game. He won three championships in the 1980s and culminated his quest with a Daytona 500 victory in 1989.

He celebrated in victory lane with the "Ickey Shuffle" -- a dance made famous by then Cincinnati Bengals running back Ickey Woods.

By contrast, Daytona 500 winners in recent years have been inundated with interviews and photo-ops and act as if the commitments are an annoyance.

"These guys aren't having fun anymore," Waltrip said. "They have a lot of pressure on them. They have to perform and they have a lot of people they have to beat. When I was running, we had just a few people that we had to beat. You could have a bad day and still finish sixth or seventh. Now, if you are off a little bit, you finish 37th."

Jeff Gordon is a three-time Daytona 500 winner and is one of those drivers who deals with the daily demands of a sport that has increased in acceptance. NASCAR is the second most-watched sport in the United States, trailing only the NFL in television ratings.

"Even people that don't know about this sport know about the Daytona 500," Gordon said. "I think people that know about racing know the significance of this race."

The Daytona 500 has been called the "Super Bowl of NASCAR," and Waltrip believes it means just as much to today's drivers as it did in his era. The difference is other races in bigger markets with other distractions over a schedule that extends nearly the entire year has threatened to diminish its importance.

"With a $16 million purse, it's pretty damn important," Waltrip said. "Just a few years ago, we only had a handful of big races that paid big money that you really wanted to win. It was Daytona, the Charlotte 600; they threw Indianapolis in there and the Southern 500. They paid you a $1 million bonus if you won three of those races. Those are the ones you set your sights on when the season started. Now, everything pays $1 million, and that has diminished the value of some of our bigger races."

In the good old days, drivers even had fun with their nearest competitor in the battle for the title. The psychological warfare between Waltrip and Bobby Allison was legendary.

Waltrip liked to get into Allison's head, and the distraction often worked as Waltrip beat Allison for the championship in 1981 and '82. Allison got his revenge by beating Waltrip for the championship in '83.

Waltrip also used his psychology on Bill Elliott to spook him out of the 1985 title, even though Elliott had won 11 races and 11 poles that season. Last year's points race was devoid of any drama as Kenseth nearly sleepwalked to the title.

"If I had been in the points race with Matt Kenseth, it would have been a piece of cake," Waltrip boasted. "They would have needed a team psychologist if I had been working on him. These guys aren't mental giants; they can be gotten to."

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