By The Commish

Spring is officially here, which means the beginning of two of my least-favorite seasons: pollen season and Silly Season. Pollen at least goes away in a few weeks, but rumor season in NASCAR just seems to get longer and longer every year. It seems that we start hearing about drivers losing or changing rides earlier and earlier every year—now the start of Silly Season is about the same time that sponsors make their second quarterly payment to teams, so somewhere in April, we can expect the rumor mill to start up.

I’ve already heard discussion of two drivers and possibly one crew chief who may be moving on, and we’re only four races into the season. People like me who write about racing for the Internet are often accused of starting these rumors— I got chewed out on another board just the other day for reporting Lee Montgomery’s firing— but usually we don’t. So this month I’d like to talk about where they actually come from.

Some rumors spring from very uninformed sources—disgruntled fans on Internet forums, for instance, are already writing that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is deliberately “tanking” his season, either to force DEI to give him a bigger role (or more or different support) or so that he can switch to Richard Childress Racing. None of these alternatives, in my experience, is likely to be true: these fans should reference the Gordon-Loomis campaign of 2000 to see what happens when a leading contender changes crew chiefs. When one of these rumors takes off on an Internet discussion board, it’s not unusual for the rumor to spread to four or five other boards within hours—and from there to an article on a site that shows up on Jayski.com — and once it’s on Jayski, as we all know, it’s the next best thing to official. Actually, Jay does a great job checking out his sources—remember, he was the first one to seriously pursue the rumor that Winston was leaving the sport, which we all “knew couldn’t happen.”

But more of the rumors come from people in positions to know that a change is impending. It’s not just the driver and owner and sponsor who are involved, after all. If a driver is about to get a new ride, you’ll see him more at the gym. He may suddenly hire a new publicity person or start working with a media coach. Haircuts improve; down payments are made on houses and flashy new cars appear (for both the driver and spouse). Most fans don’t see these things happen, but with 90 percent of the NASCAR teams headquartered- and living- in about a 40-mile radius of Charlotte, the stories get around. Remember, the reporters work out at the same gyms, eat at the same restaurants, and pick up their kids at the same schools as the rest of the NASCAR community. Many a Silly Season rumor starts with a casual conversation in the parking lot of Hooters or Home Depot.

If a driver is about to lose a ride, conversely, orders for big-ticket items may get cancelled. Long-planned vacations may be “postponed.” Real estate goes on the market and mortgages are refinanced, while purchases of new motor homes get put off. The driver suddenly starts doing more media appearances, trying to improve his visibility and Q-ratings. Crew chiefs start speaking of the driver in guarded terms. And, inevitably, someone adds the Southern Kiss-of-Death pendant to sentences about the driver: “He’s really trying, bless his heart.” “We’re trying to find some chemistry, bless his heart.” He’s about to lose the ride, bless his heart.

But often there are signs long before the driver gives them. The suppliers for his souvenir trailer will suddenly notice that team T-shirts are in, but those featuring the driver’s face aren’t being restocked. The press kit is “being revised.” The hero cards run out—and aren’t replaced. All of these signs start rumors from people at the manufacturing companies, the die-cast dealers, and the hundreds of ancillary services that support a race team.

And when a driver change is in the works, lots more people are involved. New uniforms have to be ordered; new T-shirts and souvenirs designed and made. The hauler shows up at Pro-Cal or one of the other shops to be repainted in mid-season. Now that the car-wrap decals are available, it’s easier to get a new car ready in secret; a car can be re-wrapped in about six hours. But Elliott Sadler’s car for RYR was painted and decaled a month before his official signing was announced. At least four people I know saw it before the announcement—none of whom was officially connected to Yates. A photographer is hired to shoot new hero cards and press pictures, and then a local print shop has to get those materials ready. Meantime, various lawyers and paralegals, insurance people and bankers, are drawing up all sorts of new agreements. Quite often at least sixty to seventy people are involved in getting the new driver materials ready—and that makes it easy for rumors to start. All it takes is just one “Guess who I saw getting fitted at Simpson?” to start the rumor mill cooking.

And teams float rumors deliberately—sometimes to get rid of a driver who isn’t working out-- think Casey Atwood at Evernham Motorsports, sometimes to pressure an owner to give a team more support or renegotiate a deal. When stories keep circulating about a driver becoming available, such as Greg Biffle in 2004, even when the team denies it, you know somebody is priming the rumor pumps—and then you start asking “Who benefits?” And when a team suddenly starts to get better equipment, or a driver signs a big new deal, after those mysterious rumors refuse to die, well, you know you’ve seen Silly Season manipulated by a creative hand.

Rumors, of course, generate lots of publicity for a team—and there’s a school that says there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But they also cause questioning and dissension on a team—which weakens the chemistry and communication among team members, and can therefore worsen an already-bad situation. Sometimes they can unify fans behind a driver or team, but many times they can exacerbate suspicion and cause further tension. People who write about the rumors have a very difficult line to walk—we have to be as sure as we can that a rumor is true before we write about it, or risk hurting innocent people by spreading a rumor. So a lot of our work is based on trust of our sources—and on good old-fashioned leg work, usually through publicly-available records, to see if there is corroborating evidence. We all want to be the first to have a great new story—but sometimes we get snookered like everyone else does.

So here’s my advice: before you repeat a rumor, no matter how juicy, think it out and check it out. It will save you—and maybe a lot of other people—a lot of grief. On the other hand, if you think it holds up, remember the words of Alice Roosevelt: “If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, sit right here by me."

Copyright ©2005 Jeff Gordon Online. All rights reserved.