Gentlemen, start your welfare

I suppose he still has nightmares about it, almost a quarter-century on. It was 1995, and a new page was turning that May in Indianapolis -- emerging new teams, emerging new talents, the march of time doing its usual work.

And as if to emphasize the point, here was the king of May himself, lost in the weeds like all the shoestring operations he regularly feasted upon.

Roger Penske's mighty host had dominated IndyCar for years, but never more so than in 1994. Powered by a Mercedes engine light years beyond what everyone else was running, Team Penske turned that season into an utter joke, winning 12 of the 16 races. Coinciding with the rise of NASCAR's powerful brand, you could argue it was one of the factors that helped send IndyCar into an eclipse from which it has never fully recovered.

Then came May of '95. And, astoundingly, Team Penske failed to make the race -- in the last desperate hours, even borrowing engines from someone else in an attempt to find the speed that so mysteriously had gone missing.

So I guess I can understand where Penske -- and Chip Ganassi, and several other of the dominant teams in IndyCar -- are coming from.

They want protection from 1995, essentially. Or, to look at it another way: They want more of an advantage than they already have.

What they want, as Ganassi said here, is guaranteed starting spots for the 500 for all the full-season teams. They're carrying the sport, the argument goes, and therefore the sport owes them. Particularly in May at Indy, because the sport depends almost entirely on it these days.

Why should they have to go through all that stress, worry and R&D to make sure they make the one show that matters?

I understand the argument. I also think it's 10 pounds of  natural fertilizer in a five-pound bag.

That's because it's essentially the haves of the sport wanting to use their exalted position to game the system, in a culture where gaming the system is and always has been poison. Outside the sports bubble, gaming the system may be practically a sacrament for the entitled rich; welfare for them isn't a "handout" like they say it is for poor folk, it's just bidness. But inside the sports bubble?

Gaming the system is viewed, rather quaintly, as cheating. Especially when you're using a loaded word like "guarantee."

"Guarantee," after all, betrays the very culture of sport, in auto racing and every other realm. The foundation of all of it is that no one is guaranteed anything. You are owed nothing, no matter what Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi and a host of others think.

Remember what your mom always told you, whenever you got too big for your britches?.

You act like the world owes you a living ...

Wonder if the Captain and the rest of 'em ever heard that from their moms.