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Write or wrong Journalists offer their take on NASCAR's presentation
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com ATLANTA -- Until the very moment the news conference began Tuesday, Jim Hunter, NASCAR's newly installed Vice President of Corporate Communications, was uncertain how the carefully orchestrated and scrupulously scripted presentation of facts from the six-month investigation into the death of Dale Earnhardt would be received. And while it is all, obviously, in the eye of the beholder, hours after the fact there was little consensus among the audience at whom all the pomp and circumstance was directed. "I don't think they answered every question," said Al Pearce, who writes for AutoWeek and has covered NASCAR since 1969. "But I thought it was very credible, I thought [Drs. James H. Raddin Jr. and Dean L. Sicking] were very credible. But I wish that [NASCAR president] Mike Helton had said that, 'Come Daytona, head and neck devices will be mandated,' for example, rather than suggesting that 'we're moving toward those things.'" Pearce was seconded by Mike Harris, who has covered NASCAR since 1980 for The Associated Press. "I thought it was very thorough and very believable," Harris said. "I wish they could have made serious conclusions [about what caused this], but I suppose that's not realistic. And whatever the motivation, whether they did it because it's the right thing to do or because they were forced into it by circumstance, at least they're moving in the right direction [by moving toward black boxes and a medical liaison]." However, one veteran of the NASCAR beat, who asked that he not be identified, was less sanguine about Tuesday's presentation. "I think they want to keep everybody confused," he said. "They're sort of blaming Simpson [the seatbelt manufacturer] and Earnhardt [for incorrectly installing the belt] at the same time. I think they want to raise doubt, keep everything murky, the way they always do." Though no two observers had precisely the same take -- one person felt NASCAR blamed the belt, another said that no one, single cause had been identified -- virtually everyone who has covered the sport for any amount of time at least believed that NASCAR had indeed sought expert opinions and covered all the angles in its investigation. "It struck me as being almost too detailed, almost too dense for the average person," said David Poole of The Charlotte Observer, "but I think that was probably necessary to make the point that NASCAR didn't gloss over any aspect of this investigation in an attempt to arrive at a conclusion that was favorable to them."
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Dale Earnhardt Jr.
