WHEN DRIVERS RUN OUT OF TALENT

Anyone who saw the NASCAR race Saturday night saw Kyle Bush run out of talent and take Dale Jr out of the lead. Or Lewis Hamilton last year during a F1 race run out of talent coming down pit row and going off course costing him a shot at the F1 Championship most likely.

In Kyle Bush’s case it affected another racer in Lewis Hamilton’s it didn’t but both at that time and place just flat ran out of talent. In the situation with Kyle Bush it goes beyond running out of talent as 1000’s of young racers where watching that race many of whom now might well believe it’s acceptable behavior on the race track.

What is this teaching all these young racers? Weather Kyle Bush likes it or not he is a role model to a lot of young racers out here and the example’s he set both Friday night during the Nationwide race and Saturday night during the NASCAR race was pretty poor.

Is respecting other racers on the track becoming a lost part of racing, is doing whatever it takes to win on the track following corporate America’s examples with ENRON and the mortgage mess we are now facing. Win at any cost, become successful at any cost.

As a parent what do you tell your young racer about racing their competitors clean?

With Cody I can’t tell him how to race out there I can however make it very clear that respect is given to drivers like Cory Reeves, Jacob Duval who race their competitors clean and still win time after time. It takes very little driving talent to boot a competitor in a corner, to drive over them rather making a clean pass on them.

I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum on this over the last three years Cody has been racing. More times than not it was Cody who was on the receiving end of a less talented drivers practices. On one occasion Cody forgot he is a talented kid and pulled a less than Cody like move on Nick Neri I was in total shock when I witnessed it. After the race I didn’t have to say anything Cody told me without my prompting he regretted doing it and being a less than talented driver was not the way he wanted to be known.

In the past two races Cody had to deal with two separate kids whose talent, driving skills where so lacking they took him out of both races or moved him back several positions. All you can tell a young driver when this happens is to keep their chin up, to race against even those who have thru a lack of their own talent; driving skills have taken him out in past races too race them clean in future races.

It’s very hard as a parent to deal with this because deep down you’d like to tell him to go out and boot the kids but that proves nothing. Going out racing them clean and beating them proves everything if you are a talented driver and thats what you have to impresson on your young driver. I would be more proud of Cody for finishing second than winning by showing he is less than a talented driver.

To be comtinued.