I can't stand in anymore.
First off I do want to commend Melanie and her team, its nice to see someone with this chase still have some integrity. I do appreciate Del also being up front and that the coverage actually talked about it. However with the countdown it now encourages race fixing to happen. Yes it did happen before, but it was less obvious and occured less often. Now with 8 teams in plus teams trying to make it in, plus having 3 times cutoffs happen, the instances where you need a dive (among teammates or paid off dives) is multiplied.
I've tried to lay off the scamdown for a few weeks. I didn't want to be the always bitching guy but after trying to sit through the first hour of coverage yesterday I can't take it anymore. One of the championship contenders is out in the hospital and it barely gets a mention, instead we focus on the fake chase (ok I understand they have to push that) but also who's going to dive for who.
Isn't the NBA in panic mode right now, because of a ref gambling on and possibly trying to fix games? Isn't Pete Rose banned from Baseball for similar acts? Yet here we are trying to promote our sport by not only making dives more needed but also promoting that our races MAY BE fixed!!!!!!!. Asking drivers ahead of time if the race is fixed, while I appreciate espn2 actually having the stones to ask doesn't that seem wrong to anyone????? Seems its just a step closer to a complete wwe scripting of the event.
Is this what our sport has come too? We gain championships by diving? How is that going to attract the new fans that the chase is supposed to entice?
Are sponsors really going to want to be associated with shams like this.
Now yes I understand the business side of it. Prior to this year I understood there would be a race from time to time at the end of the season where we could see it. Now over these last 8 races I wonder if we will get to see more clean races then dives? If its the 4th session of qualifying will teams not run in order to keep a first round match up against a teammate so that they can dive?
Also even if they attempt to race clean and a driver just happens to smoke them the cloud of suspicion is there. In the marketing/entertainment world facts get in the way. Perception is your reality. If it is even just perceived that teams are going down does that not harm the sport?
I feel like I'm sitting at a wedding reception when someone walks in and starts taking a leak in the punch bowl, yet everyone is afraid to speak up or stop him. I honestly figured that dispite my dislike for the countdown that I would eventually accept that it sucks but its here. I actually hate it more now then before, its so repulsive and vile to me. I used to watch or tape every qualifying and finals coverage, now over the last 5 races I've barely watched 1/2 of them. I thought I was going to miss not going to Indy this year....not so anymore. It appears they may need to gain one new fan with the scamdown because they are fastly losing me. Yeah I realize they may be happy about that but they have liked my money.
