Crazy people saying crazy things, Part Infinity

 Sometimes I still see Dale Earnhardt's devilish smirk, beneath that sandy cookie duster of his. This is one of those times.

See, NASCAR suspended Bubba Wallace for a race yesterday.

It did so because, during Sunday's race, Kyle Larson wrecked Bubba, after which Bubba dove down the track and wrecked Larson.

Afterward, a still-steamed Bubba crawled out of his car and went after Larson physically. Pushed him two or three times. Typical good-old-boy NASCAR stuff.

Therefore, most of us who know the sport and have been watching it for years shrugged, and agreed that the one-race suspension for wrecking Larson was probably appropriate. Then we sat back and hooted at the overreaction.

And of course there was an overreaction, this being 2022. and all. 

Folks who likely never saw a stock car race in their lives were jumping on the Magic Twitter Thingy to say Bubba should be THROWN OUT OF NASCAR for this.  They were saying McDonald's should DUMP HIM AS A SPONSOR, and even that he should be CHARGED WITH ASSAULT. 

This is where I see the Intimidator smirking.

In my mind I hear his famous line about people who said he played too rough out there: Tie a kerosene rag around your ankle so the fire ants don't crawl up and eat your candy ass. I hear Petty and Pearson and the Allisons and ol' Cale Yarborough chuckling and nodding. I dial up the end of the 1979 Daytona 500 again, speaking of the Allisons and Cale, and watch Cale and Donnie Allison wreck each other and climb out of their cars, and Bobby Allison stop his car to get in on the fun.

Punches were thrown. Donnie took off his helmet and tried to hit Cale with it. Cale even tried a half-assed karate kick.

None of them got thrown out of NASCAR for this. No charges were filed. No sponsors were lost.

Hell. Bobby and Cale are even in the NASCAR Hall of Fame now.

But that was 1979, and this is 2022. Rationality is out; hysteria is in. You'd like to think in this case at least part of the hysteria isn't because Bubba Wallace is black, but let's be real:.  Certain things only show up on certain people's radar when it's black folks behaving badly. And we all know why.

The guy who said Bubba should be kicked out of NASCAR, for instance, is a political commentator and author of, shall we say, a particular ideological bent. I doubt this person even knows what NASCAR stands for. He's likely never given it a single thought. Wonder why now?

Don't answer that. We already know the answer.

It's right there, three paragraphs above this one.