NASCAR: Brian France's behavior proves what many fans don't want to hear

Brian France’s behavior at the NASCAR Champions Banquet proves one key idea that many fans of the sport don’t want to hear.

NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France stole the show Thursday night in the NASCAR Champions Banquet when he handed 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. the box with the championship ring it before immediately turning and walking away from him without so much as looking him in the eye, much less giving him a handshake.

Truex Jr., clearly a bit puzzled, proceeded to make his way to the podium. Meanwhile, after one of the most awkward and cringeworthy exchanges involving race car drivers in award shows since Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton was involved in one with singer Ellie Goulding back at the 2015 Brit Awards, France was gone, just like that.

Here is a video of this awkward and perhaps insulting occurrence.

But what this exchange proves, aside of the fact that France acted oddly to say the very least, is something that has absolutely nothing to do with the exchange itself. In fact, it may even sound ridiculous.

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What it proves is that no, Toyota has not “rigged” NASCAR despite what the tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist bunch might tell you. As silly as that may sound based on a handshake (or lack thereof), just think about it for a second.

If Toyota really “rigged” NASCAR to the point where they had everything go right for them throughout most of the second half of the season to set them up to win the manufacturers championship as well as having a Toyota driver for Furniture Row Racing win the drivers championship in Martin Truex Jr., you would think that a simple handshake, or even maybe some eye contact with the “handpicked” champion at the awards ceremony would have been included on the NASCAR CEO’s end of the deal (which, just to clarify, doesn’t even exist — if you haven’t already picked that up) even if he was under the weather, as some people have since speculated.

Sure, all of that happened. Toyota did win the manufacturers championship, and Truex Jr. did win the drivers championship. But the point is, if the only reason that all played out perfectly is because NASCAR was “rigged”, then why did two things as simple as eye contact and a handshake to Toyota’s top driver not happen at the NASCAR Champions Banquet? Interesting…

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Of course, there will be skeptics that buy into this having to do with NASCAR being rigged by Toyota but use the argument that “this is just to make it look good”. But that honestly sounds even more ridiculous than my theory sounds. What multi-billion-dollar company with an international presence would try to cover up rigging an American sport by intentionally setting up the sport’s CEO to not shake the hand or even look in the eye of that athlete that best represented that company? At least my theory makes sense.

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NASCAR: Brian France’s behavior proves what many fans don’t want to hear

By Asher Fair | Dec 3, 2017

Brian France’s behavior at the NASCAR Champions Banquet proves one key idea that many fans of the sport don’t want to hear.