“I think NASCAR realizes drivers are just contract labor.”
   
            That’s NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte’s statement in response to the possibility of suspending drivers if cheating or car enhancement is found. In other words Labonte is claiming the “contract labor” guys make no soup-up-the-car decisions. They just put on their jump suits, show up and someone hands them the keys. Not so fast, Mr. Car # 43 with your Cheerios Dodge race team. I bet that’s the first time you heard someone say to you “not so fast” but we’re saying it.  If you expect us to believe you have no input in how the car is geared or decked out… well…well… not so fast.

            We have it on good authority drivers are not just pretty slabs of meat with two hands on the wheel. Drivers, we’ve been told, also have a thing or two between the ears. Ear plugs? Chin straps? It’s something, we’re not sure what, Mr. Not-so-fast, but we think drivers have a little responsibility for what they’re driving.  In other words, if your crew cheated, you knew about it.
           
            When they said to you  “This red button. Yes, that one right there. Okay, so its radish red and not fire engine red, but still, only hit it when you’re trying to pass Jeff Gordon. This mirror? The one that telescopes out of the car so that the driver next to you can use it? Only use this mirror if Sarah Fisher gets into NASCAR and drives along side.”

            Mr. Not-so-Fast will insist the above conversation never took place. But are we sure? Do you wonder where Q is when James Bond is not making movies? Can we know for sure he’s not collaborating with a NASCAR driver right now? After all the British love driving on the left side of the road. Hmmmm?

            Q could very well be on Mark Martin’s race team. After all, Q, at James Bond’s insistence, developed the little blue pills known as Viagra who happen to sponsor Mark Martin’s # 6 car. It’s not that far a jump to assume Mark Martin was there when Q was guiding the team to build the Viagra car. We’re pretty sure Martin said to Q “When we need to we can throw Viagra into the gas tank, am I right?” When Q nodded, Martin said to Q “I’m going to get into this Winston /Nextel Cup thing and for four years in a row, I want you to help me win it.” To which Q replied “I can’t do that, but I can help you finish second four years in a row.”
            Martin said “What? Finish second? Why?”
            “Because that is what Viagra is designed to help you do, finish second.”

        “Okay,” Martin relaxes, “I can live with that but can you enhance the front bumper so  when the car has had a tank full of Viagra the bumper extends out? I want the other drivers to know when I’m behind them. I want them to feel it and to fear it. I want them to look in their rear view mirror and know the Viagra car is on their tail.”
        “We can do that,” Q replies.
        “So then, when a driver sees the Viagra car on their tail and my bumper starts extending, I think they’ll let me pass. I sure would. If I saw blue steel and the Viagra sign and a big ol’ bumper extending, getting longer, I’d just pull over. I’m an old guy, anyway. I’m crazy and I might not have long to live and my car’s an animal and my bumper is heading for their trunk…. You’re doing a good job, Q.”

        So, Mr. Bobby “Not-So-Fast” Labonte, do you still want us to believe drivers are merely contract laborers, not in on the decisions? Have you ever cleared out for the Viagra car?