NASCAR Punishes Talladega, Takes Away Second Race

That's the headline I wish we'd all be reading Monday morning instead of "Fewer than 10 people detained for throwing debris."

Jeff Gordon is a lot more forgiving. Gordon, who handled the trashing of his win at Talladega Superspeedway Sunday with understanding and appreciation for the passion of NASCAR fans, didn't let Earnhardt Nation bruise his ego. Instead, he turned the focus to the safety issue and offered a solution:

"You hate for somebody to get hurt ... think about people sitting on the front row getting hit with those beer cans. It's really for the fans protection and the NASCAR officials standing down there. I don't know what you do. If you get enough people there to watch it, but there were so many of them I don't know what you do to stop it. It is dangerous. The drivers and NASCAR have talked about it. If you can't bring cans in the stands anymore, then they'd do it to themselves, maybe they'd used paper cups. Maybe that's the next step.

I agree that what the speedway needs to do next is ban beer cans. And while they're at it, they should hike up the prices of the beer on tap at the track to cover the extra costs of security and clean-up.

But ... it's obvious that speedway officials have no authority over their fans.

I've said it before and I'll say it again ... what NASCAR needs to do to curb this behavior is to pull one of Talladega's races and give it to a track whose fans appreciate it. There is just no justification for this track to get two races when other's are dying for one. They certainly don't deserve to be graced with a race in The Chase.

How sad that a track once rich with tradition is becoming an embarrassment to the NASCAR community.

Innocent Bystander
Matt Kenseth: "It was real disappointing at the end to see how some of the fans were acting. It's disappointing to have your $150,000 race car being pelted by full beer cans at the end of the race."