Bruton Smith says Busch shouldn't be suspended

Bruton Smith called me up this morning, wanting to talk about Kyle Busch.
Smith is a Charlotte auto magnate whose Speedway Motorsports, Inc. owns Charlotte Motor Speedway and more than a half-dozen other NASCAR tracks.

Smith disagreed with my opinion – you can see it here – that Busch should be suspended by his team owner Joe Gibbs for at least one race after he was clocked in Iredell County doing 128 mph in a 45-mph zone on a public road Tuesday.

“Let the legal system run its course,” Smith said. “That’s what I’d do if he were my employee.”

We talked about that for awhile, and then about a few other things. Smith, whose son Marcus now runs the day-to-day operations at CMS, also mentioned that the NASCAR all-star race format will likely be altered for 2012. (The 2011 version, which was last Saturday, produced a fine crowd but a boring race that had Carl Edwards leading from wire-to-wire over the final 10 laps. Edwards also led at the ends of segments No.2 and 3).

“We’re going to change that format just a little bit,” Smith said. “I can’t tell you exactly what it is, because it’s not finalized. But those 10 laps at the end may grow to 15, and we will do something to make it harder for the driver who’s got the fastest car in the field to just get in front and just stay there.”

That sounded like inversion – where you put the fastest cars at the back and make them wind through traffic during some segments. Smith said it wasn’t settled for sure.

Smith also said he estimated that CMS sold about 110,000 tickets for last Saturday night’s race (there are 135,000 permanent seats at the track) and that he was hugely pleased with the crowd and the reviews for the world’s largest HDTV in its race debut. He said there would be even more race fans there for the 600.

Regarding Kyle Busch -- who Smith said he hadn’t talked to yet but planned to before Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 – Smith said: “I thought I’d call and rattle your cage a little bit, as the late Dale Earnhardt would have said… First of all, he may not have been going 128 mph – although Kyle apologized in his statement, I don’t believe he admitted to actually going that fast…. I think the punishment, whatever it is, should stay in Iredell County. Let the legal system run its course, and hopefully it won’t run amok.”

Smith noted that Busch might be “the most talented driver we’ve ever had,” as he wins regularly in all three of NASCAR’s top series. He said that if Busch were his employee he would have a long sit-down talk with him, as he felt sure Joe Gibbs would do if he hasn’t already.

Added Smith: “And then I would tell them, ‘Go and sin no more.’ I’m sure Kyle wishes that it never happened. But in different sports, you wouldn’t necessarily be suspended for something like this. Players in some stick-and-ball sports have done much worse and still played while the legal system ran its course. That’s what should happen here.”

No excuse for Busch going 128

When you go 128 mph in a 45-mph zone, there’s really no excuse.

Kyle Busch was test-driving a new sportscar Tuesday – a yellow Lexus, with his wife Samantha in the passenger seat -- and said in a statement he got “carried away.” An Iredell County Sheriff’s Deputy clocked Busch driving 128 mph in a 45-mph zone – a staggering 83 mph over the speed limit.

Put it another way -- that’s almost three times the legal limit.

Busch, 26, is a race driver of stunning talent. And this is a mistake of stunning magnitude. I know no one got hurt, and thank God for that. But please… don’t discount this as “Just speeding.” Getting caught going 68 mph in a 60-mph zone is just speeding.

This was Busch recklessly endangering lives – including his own and the life of his wife. I know he's used to danger -- it's part of his job. But what about those he might have met on that road?

Busch released a statement Tuesday that read in part: “I went beyond the speed I should have been going on a public road. I apologize to the public, my fans, sponsors and race teams for my lack of judgment. I take responsibilities for my actions and I can assure you that something like this will never happen again.”

Now I’m glad Busch is apologizing, but that’s not enough.

Joe Gibbs, who employs Busch as the owner of Joe Gibbs racing, is one of the most decent and honest men I’ve ever met. He needs to make a statement here – that driving 128 mph on a public road can’t and won’t be tolerated.

If I’m Gibbs, I would at least suspend Busch for one weekend of Sprint Cup racing. (A spokesman for JGR told The Observer Tuesday that the organization was aware of the incident and looking into it).

I’d give Busch more than a slap on the wrist. Surely all the relevant sponsors would agree – the driver nicknamed “Rowdy” needs to be made aware that that sort of rowdiness must be confined to the track.

We all know that speed can both thrill and kill. Here’s a teachable moment, ready for the taking. Time for Gibbs to teach not only Busch a lesson, but also to help young, impressionable drivers understand how wrong what Busch did was.

I hope there won’t be a next time, as Busch assures us there won’t be. But that doesn’t absolve Busch from being punished this time.

It doesn’t sound like NASCAR will do it. Even if Busch loses his driver’s license, he is eligible to compete in NASCAR races. So Gibbs must.

For if Busch had hit anybody or anything at 128 mph on a public road, we at The Charlotte Observer wouldn’t be debating the punishment for a speeding ticket right now.

We’d be working on some obituaries.

On Lance, LeBron, Cam and Djokovic

A few sports-related thoughts on a hot Monday:

-- The implosion of cycling as a sport makes me sad more than anything else. Tyler Hamilton's revelations on Sunday's "60 minutes" show -- basically Hamilton became the latest former teammate to try and out 7-time Tour de France champ Lance Armstrong as a doper -- sound almost too detailed not to be true.
Armstrong, as usual, has launched an impassioned defense of his now-checkered reputation. He's been drug-tested for years -- more than 500 times, according to him -- and never has one come back positive.
Yet what Hamilton says is very hard to dismiss, because I really don't get what he has to gain by offering such "proof" if it's not true. Not quite sure who to believe in this one, but cycling as a sport is just so difficult to imagine as a clean sport that I feel sorry for the cyclists who do it right.

-- Peter King has an interesting note about halfway through his "Monday Morning Quarterback" column on Cam Newton and the tutoring he's been undergoing from Ken Dorsey, the former Miami Hurricane QB who has worked under the Panthers' new offensive coordinator and is now tutoring Newton some in Florida (with a copy of the Panthers playbook available if needed). Read it here.

-- LeBron James and company look like they have a little too much for Chicago, in my opinion. With Chris Bosh having come alive in this series, that Dallas-Miami NBA finals doesn't seem too far away now to me.

-- I enjoyed my friend Scott Price's story in Sports Illustrated on Novak Djokovic, the startlingly good tennis player from Serbia who has gone 38-0 so far this season while (at least temporarily) surpassing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Well worth your time. Djokovic truly is, as the SI story proclaims, currently the most dominant athlete in the world right now.

Dale Earnhardt Jr on marriage, job security

I'm writing my column for Saturday's newspaper and online on Dale Earnhardt Jr.

I spent some one-on-one interview time with Dale Jr. Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway and also listened to him in a group media session with other reporters.

A couple of the more interesting tidbits (with far more to come in the column, which is now posted here):

-- Earnhardt, currently fourth in the points standings, told me that his on-track performance had been so spotty the past several years that going into this season he was worried about his long-term job security. (He is in the fourth-year of a five-year deal with Hendrick Motorsports that expires in 2012, but it sounds like that deal is going to be extended before long).

“I thought it was kind of a make-or-break thing,” Earnhardt said of this season. “I want to be able to run for a long time. I felt like my lack of success might deprive me of that -- deprive me from the opportunity to be in this sport as long as I want to be.”

-- At age 36, Earnhardt remains a bachelor. I asked him Friday if he thought he would ever get married.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Earnhardt said. “I’m not going to say I know I will, because I don’t. It’s a little bit late in the game for me, but there still might be some hope.”

Belated birthday wishes to Choo Choo Justice

Don’t you hate missing birthdays? I missed one yesterday.

If former Tar Heel football star Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice had been alive, he would have turned 87 on May 18th.

Justice, who died in 2003, played for the Tar Heels in the late 1940s and caught the nation’s imagination. He ran, passed and kicked the ball – did just about everything, really, except play defense. Justice told me once that was because he couldn’t play defense worth a darn.

So the 5-foot-9, 165-pound jitterbug from Asheville stayed on offense, making sure the trains ran on time. The Tar Heels went 32-7-2 during Choo Choo’s four years there.

I interviewed Justice in 2000 at his home – it was one of the last times he talked with a reporter at any length. He was a sweet, humble man, married to a fine woman (Sarah) for over 50 years. Although his mind had grown foggy by then, I caught him on a good day, and he happily recalled his time as a Tar Heel.

“Carolina needed a star, " he said. “Everyone had been through a war. Confined. There had been gas rations. The war was over, and people wanted to turn it loose a little. You couldn't get 'em out of the stadium when we played at home.”

Choo Choo’s appeal wasn’t just regional. He nearly won the Heisman Trophy twice - instead finishing second in both 1948 and 1949. He was the the subject of a Benny Goodman song called "All the Way Choo Choo.” Life magazine put Choo Choo on the cover for a 1949 issue and wrote that Justice was “Rudolph Valentino made up as Superman.”

A few other quotes from Choo Choo that came from my interview with him 11 years ago:

On Sammy Baugh, the Hall of Fame quarterback Justice played with in Washington: "He could knock you down with a football. He'd tell you to go down there and do a little buttonhook and you better be protecting yourself because he was going to throw it right at your nose. And if you didn't catch it, you had your head torn off."

On money: "I played for $1,200 a game and played 10 games. Nowadays, they won't even look at you for $12,000."

On golf: "If I had a son today, I believe I'd give him a set of clubs and say, 'Get out there.' In football or baseball, you really can't play that long."

On today's NFL: "It's a different world. Pro ball has just gone completely crazy. It's not a sport anymore, it's entertainment. And it's damn good entertainment."

On why he wore No. 22 in Chapel Hill: "They threw it to me the first day, so I put it on."

Toward the end of our interview, Choo Choo paused in the middle of a story to say something else.

“I’ve had quite a life, I guess,” Choo Choo said.
Then his wife gently patted his shoulder.

(Kudos to my former colleague Lew Powell for reminding me of Choo Choo’s birthday through the following well-written blog item, which shows a number of vintage photos of Choo Choo from the wonderful photographer and humanitarian Hugh Morton).

Number 9, number 9, number 9....

The Bobcats didn't move up and didn't move down in the NBA draft lottery Tuesday night, which means they will pick ninth in the June 23 draft, barring a trade of some sort. (And a trade is possible, since they also hold picks No.19 and No.39).

I keep hearing that experimental Beatles song from the White Album in my head when I think about this pick, the one where an unidentified voice keeps repeating "Number 9, number 9, number 9..."

Although I always thought that song was a mess, No.9 really isn't a bad place to be in the NBA draft. As the Bobcats happily note in their press release, notable No.9 NBA Draft picks since 1985 include Tracy McGrady (1997), Dirk Nowitzki (1998), Amar’e Stoudemire (2002) and Joakim Noah (2007). All-stars, all of them.

What the Bobcats don't note -- and I wouldn't either if I were them -- are the misfires at No.9 like Rodney White (who played one year for the Charlotte 49ers before bolting). Or Michael Sweeney. Or Patrick O'Bryant. Or Ike Diogu. All were No.9 picks since 2001, and can you remember anything any of them did in the NBA? Exactly.

You can also get a decent player at No.9, like D.J. Augustin, whom the Bobcats chose in 2008. Augustin has become a decent starting point guard, but not a great one.

Where should Charlotte go with that No.9 pick? I won't pretend to have studied the draft, but if there's a center out there who can help them at all, that's a huge need. A guy like Noah lasting until No.9 -- that's amazing, really, in retrospect, with how much NBA teams value big men.

But wherever Michael Jordan and Rod Higgins go with this one, the pick has to be a starter within two seasons. No ifs, ands or buts. The Bobcats can't afford another Adam Morrison misfire, and what they really need is a home run.

There's a couple of them out there in this draft, even though the draft isn't thought to be particularly strong overall. There always are. But will the Bobcats find him?

My thoughts on Cam's marketability

I read with interest the Sunday story that our Joseph Person wrote about Cam Newton's marketability, which can be seen here if you missed it.

The basic point: Newton, due to his high-profile Auburn success and the fact he is an NFL quarterback, probably has more marketability upside than any Charlotte team sports figure since Larry Johnson. (We're not talking about NASCAR).

But can Cam sell?

Oh, there's no doubt he can. Having been around Newton a little bit now while in New York, watching him get drafted, he can dazzle the cameras when he wants to. He's got a presence about him that plays well on TV. And the fact that he doesn't want to dazzle folks all the time and blows some interview requests off occasionally -- including mine at one point -- is hardly going to be a hindrance to that. I think it's clear that if a company like Under Armour has already signed Newton -- despite the personal baggage and the fact that no one knows if he's going to be a good NFL pro or not -- he's extremely marketable at the moment.

But there's no doubt that marketability gets flushed down the drain pretty quickly if Newton messes up on or off the field to any great extent. In other words, stay out of strip clubs, don't Tweet anything controversial, don't anger your teammates and, above all, play well and win.

That last part is the most important -- he will have to win in Charlotte, and win a lot, to avoid being the flavor of the month and sustain that marketability. As I've written before, I thought the Panthers made the right choice in drafting Newton, given that they were somewhat backed into a corner because of who was available, what their greatest need was and the fact no other NFL team wanted to offer much in a trade.

But Newton caught a break when the lockout was "off" for about 24 hours, just in time to get that playbook. He's got that, he's got a place to work out in Florida and he has, among others, former NFL quarterback Chris Weinke as a tutor (uh-oh).

It's a start. Just the fact you can write a story about Newton's marketability and discuss it seriously -- it shows for certain that the Panthers are far more interesting than they were before he arrived.