Boys, have at it

<p>SONOMA - Back in September of 2005, Michael Waltrip took exception to Robby Gordon during a race at New Hampshire and was moved - Waltrip is not proud of this - to flip off his fellow Sprint Cup driver. As he raised his arm, though, Waltrip realized he was on national TV and aborted the gesture mid-bird. His hand came up in sort of a loose grip, as though he were about the throw a two-seam fastball.</p><p>NASCAR fined him $10,000 and docked him 25 points anyway.</p><p>Waltrip appealed and visited the corporate offices in Charlotte, N.C., for a hearing. Fortunately for him, he picked up a copy of NASCAR Illustrated in the reception area and saw a photo of two men talking. He thinks one was Ken Schrader. The other may have been Rusty Wallace. He isn't sure. But one of them was unconsciously using the same cupped gesture with his hand that had landed Waltrip in hot water.</p><p>“And I said, ‘OK, did ya'll fine this guy for what he's doing? And how are you gonna fine me for what I'm doing?' There's just no evidence here that I did that,” Waltrip recalled this week in the lobby of the Best Western Premier Ivy Hotel in Napa, where he was filming a promo for the hotel chain.</p><p>Waltrip won the appeal. </p><p>“The reason why I tell the story is that's how goofy it got,” said Waltrip, who co-owns the No. 56 car driven by Martin Truex Jr. this weekend and the No. 00 car driven by David Reutimann. “And now we're seemingly over that a little bit.”</p><p>Richard Childress would seem to be “over that.” It was the respected team owner who reportedly put driver Kyle Busch in a headlock in the garage area and got in a couple punches after a Camping World Truck Series race in Kansas on June 4. Busch apparently was already over it. He got into a scrap with rival Kevin Harvick at Darlington on May 7 and plowed Harvick's empty car into a wall on pit road. Ryan Newman allegedly threw a punch at Juan Pablo Montoya in a closed-door meeting two days before that race. Even teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin had issues last week at Michigan.</p><p>Has NASCAR created a monster, or simply taken the leash off of its prize dogs?</p><p>It was NASCAR vice president Robin Pemberton who waved the green flag during a media tour in January 2010, when he uttered the now-famous words: “Boys, have at it, and have a good time.”</p><p>Pemberton was specifically referring to bump-drafting at Talladega and Daytona, but his proclamation was widely interpreted as a free pass to jostle on the racetrack, and perhaps to settle matters the old-fashioned way when the race is over.</p><p>The edict seemed to have immediate ramifications last season, especially when Carl Edwards sent Brad Keselowski's car airborne at Atlanta. This year has been even wilder, no image more indelible than Childress, the silver-haired grandfather, administering a little garage justice to Busch's dome.</p><p>“I love watching it,” driver AJ Allmendinger said. “We all love it. It's just like the fans, man. It brings excitement. I love getting home, SportsCenter, watching who's knocking who out. ... We kind of had a roll there for a couple years where it didn't seem like anything was really happening. So I think it's fun to see, as long as I'm just not a part of it.”</p><p>It's an intriguing prologue to today's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway, a road course known for inspiring no-holds-barred racing. Last year's event was filled with wrecks. Jeff Gordon alone was accused of taking out at least four other cars.</p><p>Some drivers - Harvick, Newman and Tony Stewart among them - have complained that they don't know the rules now.</p><p>“I don't mind getting wrecked,” Harvick said after the Darlington incident. “I don't mind eye for an eye. I don't mind any of that. But just tell me what the rules are. Explain to me what the penalty is. ... If you are going to retaliate, what is the penalty?”</p><p>Others seem more comfortable with NASCAR's policy, or non-policy, enjoying the freedom to drive and talk aggressively, all the while knowing there are acceptable rules of conduct in any walk of life.</p><p>“Ultimately, it comes down to, at least for me, you race somebody how they race you, and how you want to be raced,” Allmendinger said. “We live together every weekend, you know? ... You know that if something happens to you, and it was big, you gotta go back and get 'em back. Otherwise you just get run over in this sport. That's the way it's always been.”</p><p>Indeed, Ned Jarrett, recently inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, is in favor of the “boys, have at it” model - not because it takes stock car racing to a new level, but because it restores the sport to where it was when he raced back in the 1950s.</p><p>“I'm not sure there's a lot of difference in it as far as the behavior is concerned,” Jarrett said. “The difference is there were not many press members present back then. People didn't have a camera rolling on them every accident, and a tape recorder recording every word that somebody says. ... We probably did more of the beating and banging then than they do now.”</p><p>Waltrip agreed. </p><p>“I know it's not the first time Richard Childress has ever gone and had to straighten someone out in his 40- or 50-year career in NASCAR,” he observed. “But I'm imagining that back in the day, it was Richard Childress heading toward a guy he was gonna straighten out, and he tells his buddy, ‘Here, hold my beer and grab my Timex, because I don't want to hurt my watch.' And this scene would have been the same, only different. Richard would have said, ‘Here, hold my cabernet and take my Rolex.'”</p><p>Yes, the trappings of NASCAR have acquired some glitter in the past few decades. But the boys are havin' at it again.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.</p>