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Lawyers Need To Stay Out Of On-Track Incidents

Charlotte, NC (March 22, 2010) – It seems like all anyone could talk about for the past two weeks was the high-flying act Brad Keselowski took after an assist from Carl Edwards in the late stages of the Atlanta race.

Everyone had an opinion – even the legal community.

According to John Morrow, an attorney from Winston Salem, NC, drivers need to reassess retaliating on the track because if they intentionally wreck another competitor and someone is injured, criminal penalties could possibly be filed.

You’ve got to be kidding, right?

As if the legal community doesn’t have enough to do, now they are going to meddle in sports injuries?

Saying that a local prosecutor in the spotlight might face outside pressures and influences to charge a race-car driver, Morrow opened up a huge can of worms that could wiggle out the next time something happens at the track. Of course, there is always the matter of trying to prove intent – which in most cases is almost impossible – as well as negligence, but regardless of a final outcome, lawsuits involving athletes always get good coverage in the murky waters of mainstream media. While that might help a local lawyer’s profile, these lawsuits take time, tons of money (most of which not surprisingly goes to the lawyers), and usually leave those accused tainted to a degree regardless of the verdict in the case.

To say these kinds of lawsuits are silly and frivolous is an understatement. If you are going to take race car drivers to task for specific incidents on the track, are you then going to arrest and prosecute National Football League players for chop blocks, National Basketball Association players for deliberate fouls at the hoop, Major League Baseball players for hard slides, or National Hockey League players for cross checks into the boards?

The legal system is already overburdened by lawsuits without merit thanks to a tidal wave of legal beagles that will sniff at anything that smells like a fee-paying case. Our advice is to keep prosecuting the real crooks and defend people who are innocent of crimes instead of trying to find additional revenue sources in the sports world.

Unfortunately, it seems like there are enough athlete offenders away from the games they play to keep the most of the legal community busy anyway.

Where The Rubber Meets The Road

Sunday’s race at Bristol was yet another contest where tires popped like bubblegum. A host of competitors saw their chances of a good finish or a win blow out when their right-front Goodyear Racing Eagle tire failed.

We’re not bashing Goodyear here. As a longtime NASCAR competitor and team member, we appreciate the dynamics of trying to build a tire that will stand up to the heat, stress and loading that a NASCAR Sprint Cup car produces.

Then again, this seems to have been a problem at almost every race since the introduction of the Car of Tomorrow three seasons ago. While the rest of the car seems to be bulletproof, the tires clearly are the weak link in the equation.

Surely, Goodyear can build a better, longer lasting and more competitive tire than the one they are now producing, can’t they? Until they do, you can expect more of the same kind of tire-induced carnage that you saw at Bristol Sunday.

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