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The main goal? Just don't get sued
The public relations dance today is all about lawsuits. Don't you think? On Tuesday afternoon, NASCAR president Mike Helton and his two experts ran through the results of their million-dollar study of Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash on Turn 4 of the final lap of this year's Daytona 500. The speakers were like all public men in all public pronouncements these days: They tried very hard to sound like they were saying something important while not saying much at all. The cause of death? Well, it could have been any one of a number of factors, probably a combination of a bunch of them. Changes for the future? Well, there are a number of options, possibilities, but we're going to study everything for a while. Heroes? Villains? Well, some things just happen. The spokesmen for NASCAR were like doctors today, running around the conversational maypole in trying to explain why mom isn't feeling very well. They were like lawyers, telling the client to go for the settlement rather than risk a trial, even if the client's case is right. They were like ... politicians. Enough said. The goal today, just about everywhere, is to look good, sound good, then get off stage without really saying anything that can come back and bite you. Stay out of court. Stay out of trouble. Keep the wheels of commerce moving. Saturday night. Bristol, Tennessee. The Bristol 500. Gentlemen, start your engines at your own peril. Same as always. Leigh Montville appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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