Saturday, July 28, 2012

NASCAR Officials Imitate Nevada Boxing Judges

Elliott Sadler was screwed, ripped off, stole from, jacked and pretty much cheated out of a victory in the Nationwide race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today.  The NASCAR officials looked liked the boxing judges who judged the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight while blind.
From ESPN: Brad Keselowski took the lead when Elliott Sadler was penalized for jumping a late restart, then held on to win Saturday in a controversial finish to the first NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Sadler passed Keselowski on a restart with 18 laps to go, but officials ruled Sadler went too early and black-flagged him. Sadler stayed on the track for several laps, apparently hoping officials would reconsider the penalty, before finally coming in with 12 laps to go and giving up the lead to Keselowski.
http://espn.go.com/racing/nascar/nationwide/story/_/id/8209958/elliott-sadler-speeding-penalty-gives-brad-keselowski-win-indy
The yellow was brought out by a spin by Kyle Busch with Keslowski in the lead followed by Sadler.
When they lined up, Keslowski chose the inside lane and Sadler was on the outside.
When the green flag fell, Keslowski spun his tires, which put him behind Sadler by a couple of feet or so and then Sadler was pushed from behind by Austin Dillon in the #3 car. ( It may have been the other Dillon- not positive) and that push made Sadler go past Keslowski before the start/finish line.  Because of this, Sadler was shown the black flag for passing the leader before the start/finish line.
Sadler's crew argued with the NASCAR officials but to no avail.  The replays confirmed that Keslowski spun his tires and that Sadler was pushed.  For some reason, NASCAR obviously did not look at the replays and got pig headed refused to change their penalty.
What this decision even worse was at the beginning of the race, Kyle Busch passed Kasey Kahne well before the start/finish line and no penalty was called.
Finally, shame on ESPN after the race.  ESPN/ABC handles all of the Nationwide races and after the race, not only did they not interview Elliot Sadler, they did not ask Keslowski about the incident during the victory celebration in victory lane.  Basic Journalism 101 questions.
The ramifications of NASCAR's screw up are big.  It cost Sadler a win, the points for winning the race, money for winning the race, lost his lead in the standings, $100,000 for the dash for cash and the pride in saying you won at Indy, probably Nationwide's second biggest race of the season.
It's a shame that the NASCAR officials threw the black flag and race on Sadler just as it was a shame that the Nevada boxing judges screwed up in the Pacquiao-Bradley fight.  Maybe the NASCAR officials were playing on the Internet in the booth instead of watching the race, just as the boxing judges were in another world/galaxy.

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