There are a lot of people in this sport who like to run their mouth and all too often it is a motorsports reporter at the other end. Despite many of these reporters knowing the reputation of those they are speaking with, they report the rumors/speculation anyway. And then we are all forced to deal with the story lines for the following week.
Now for all intents and purposes I will look at two of the worst motor mouths.
One of the biggest offenders is Chip Ganassi Racing co-owner Felix Sabates. Now let me say Felix is a respected member of the community and generally a good guy. You would be hard-pressed to find too many people in the garage that feel differently. That being said, Felix has a habit of talking, and anyone who has been around the sport for even a short amount of time knows he does this. Sometimes his speculation is thought provoking, but often it is a little off the wall. Just a couple of weeks ago Bob Margolis thought it a good idea to publish some of Felix’s musings as a “rumor (he) heard in the Cup garage” (I spoke about this in an earlier post). This obviously made it sound a little more credible then it really was.
Another offender is O. Bruton Smith, chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc. Now I like Bruton, I think he is a good personality for the sport. He serves as a throwback to days past. On that sentiment though I may be in the minority; he perhaps does not hold the same esteem Sabates does.
All that aside, Bruton really enjoys the attention he gets when he opens his mouth. Remember him threatening to move Lowes Motor Speedway out of Concord? It was never going to happen, yet we gave him front page headlines anyway. Likewise, this weekend he reaffirmed his desire to buy NASCAR from the France family and inevitably someone reported on it. I think I have a better chance of winning the lottery than the France’s selling NASCAR. To his credit Terry Blount did not give the nugget credence and it was only a small piece of a much larger article.
So my point to this is, consider the source before you allow yourself to get sucked in. I will agree often times these guys give out really juicy pieces of the information and/or good news/rumors. That being said, it is best to be weary of what these repeat offenders (and others) say until it is set in stone.
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on Nov 4th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Nice post, but you forgot two of the biggest mouth-runners in the sport. I, of course, am talking about the Waltrips. Their agenda is self-promotion, whereas it seems Bruton and Felix only like the headlines, as they both have more money than they can ever spend.
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 9:47 am
This is always an interesting topic to me, since on our rowdy podcast we often have to make choices about what to talk about. Even if you hear a rumor, and you plan on identifying it as such, you still need to be fairly confident that it has some decent chance of being true. Or at least for us, if everybody’s already talking about it, we’re not hurting anybody by talking about it and thinking about it on our show.
The funny thing is that it’s pretty easy for a rumor to spread around the garage area or through the NASCAR press corps, so you can hear it in multiple places, which gives you the illusion that it has more merit than it might actually have. Some rumors can actually have a negative effect on someone due to the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” mentality. So even if you say “this is just a rumor I heard,” you still need to be careful with what you believe and what you say if you are in a position to present the rumor to the public.
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Ya see, this is exactly why I love this site. Because no one knows who T.C. and Journo are….so they can be open and honest about their opinions and the “inside” happenings of the garage area….without backlash. Unlike the truly enetrtaining NASCAR “come to Jesus” meeting when drivers and crew are “persuaded” not to speak badly of the COT. Not to mention the Indy/Goodyear debacle. One thing is for sure, if the racing on track gets a little dull from time to time, just tune in to hear Dale Jarrett put Rusty in his place and argue on air about pretty much anything. Now that’s some “mouth running” that’s worth tuning in for.