NASCAR Fans Need To Quit Complaining About Emotions

A small firestorm was started when a FOX camera caught Samantha Busch saying a profanity watching her husband Kyle get bumped out of the way for a win. Fans constantly complain about the lack of emotion in the personalities in our sport, until someone actually shows it, then they complain even more.

NASCAR has done more than its fair share to hurt the sport that we love and it controls. We constantly talk about the schedule, the cars, Brian France, political statements, tracks and so on and so on. We loudly complain that NASCAR, with its personal conduct policy, has regulated emotion out of the personalities in the sport. Case in point, the $35,000 fine for Tony Stewart for actually speaking his mind and making sense.

That said, the fans in NASCAR have a terrible habit of going to social media and throwing a fit when anyone actually does show true emotion. Sunday afternoon in Richmond, Samantha Busch watched her husband get bumped out of the way for a spectacular last lap finish. In the heat of the moment she was caught by a camera, she probably did not see, uttering a single word of profanity. It was not directed ant anyone, just a burst of emotion in a heated moment.

After the race social media blew up with people complain about her cursing on television. How it was not appropriate and bad for it to be seen. Am I missing something? I curse worse than that if I get cut off pulling into the drive through line at Starbucks. Is it right? I doubt it, but I am not rolling my window down yelling at that person. I just let out a word I should not use in from of my kids.

Its emotion and if there is any one thing that NASCAR needs is emotion on any level. We need our fans to be emotional about the sport. We need the drivers to be emotional about what is happening on the track. We need the people running the sport to be emotional about the direction the spot has taken.

Its the emotional outbursts of the likes of Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty, Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt and countless others that drew people to NASCAR like moths to a flame. When the NASCAR started clamping down on emotions in the 2000’s is when fans started to turn away. We as fans need to encourage these shows of true emotion, not complain about them. Where do you think NASCAR gets its crazy ideas to curtail emotion from? Its responses to things like Samantha Busch said that gets NASCAR to come up with its next stupid rule.

As a fan, I would have much rather seen Kyle Busch jump out of the car and say what his wife said and show how much coming in second today sucked rather than list off his sponsors, shrug his shoulders and walk away. The reason he did that is because NASCAR is afraid people will do exactly what they did when they saw his wife curse, complain. I am not a Kyle Busch fan at all, but he needs to be able to speak his mind to be the villain this sport so desperately needs.

I am glad to see that drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr and other personalities in the sport have reached out in support of Busch. I just wish it was not needed. We as fans crave more coverage, more inside looks and microphones to capture the raw emotion and action involved in a NASCAR race. What are you expecting? This is raw emotion at its best and it shows that the people in the sport are totally invested. We as fans should care as much and applaud it, not condemn it.

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