The corrosive power of That Word

Kyle Larson is likely the last person NASCAR figured would raise the head of its racist past. And the first person who should have known better.

What Larson did, during a live-streamed virtual race, is drop the Extinction Event of racial epithets into a hot mic.

Now, the n-word, used in this context, doesn't immediately tag Larson as a tabacky-chewing good ol' boy just tryin' to keep the vote reserved for white folk -- in other words, NASCAR's original core constituency. Still, that in no way softens the impact. The weight of its freighted history alone ensures that.

And there's scarcely anyone in NASCAR who should have been more aware of that than Kyle Larson.

As one of only two drivers of Asian descent in NASCAR, he's half-Japanese on his mother's side, and he grew up hearing stories from his maternal grandparents, who were interned during World War II for the "crime" of being of Japanese descent. So he knows about racism. He's also a proud graduate of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program -- which makes this doubly vexing for NASCAR, which began D4D precisely to eradicate for good its redneck past.

Kyle Larson dropping the n-word must have had them all tearing their hair out by the roots.

In 2020, That Word is as radioactive as Pripyat after Chernobyl reactor No.4 blew up, which is why Larson is unemployed three days after he dropped it. First his sponsors dropped him like a hot brick, then Chip Ganassi Racing dropped him, That sequence tells you everything you need to know about the economics of motorsports.

Simply put, a guy the sponsors won't touch is a guy no viable racing team will touch. It doesn't matter how talented you are -- and Larson, a rising star at 27, is supremely talented. Three days ago, he was regarded as the top free agent in NASCAR.

Now?

Now his phone has gone silent. And that's not because he's forgotten how to wheel a race car; it's because he no longer has any sponsor dollars to bring to the table. It's a dynamic that has driven decisions in the sport longer than you think it has.

A story: Thirty-three years ago,  in 1987, a driver showed up at Indianapolis in May without a ride. That happens a lot at Indy, but this case was somewhat unique.

This particular driver, see, was Al Unser Sr. Who'd already won the 500 three times.

But he had no sponsors, and so he had no ride. Danny Ongais saved him. Driving one of Roger Penske's cars, he suffered a concussion after crashing in practice, which Danny Ongais had a tendency to so. With few other options at such a late date, Penske hired Unser to fill the vacant seat, which turned out to be a year-old car that had been sitting in a hotel lobby not long before.

So of course Al stuck it in the field and then went on to win his fourth 500, and Penske's sixth. But if Ongais hadn't crashed, Big Al likely would have been a spectator.

No dough, no show: That's how the wheel turns in motorsports. It's not the speed that matters; it's the speed of the economics.

As Kyle Larson, in less than 48 hours, has painfully learned.