The Baddest of the Bad Boys

Everybody loves a good villain; villains make any situation more interesting. Nascar has its own version of a villain... they are the bad boys.



There have been a few bad boys in recent years; the most obvious of which would be Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart. Busch was considered a bad boy back during his rivalry with "never was" Jimmy Spencer, when Spencer was still behind the wheel rather than in front of the tv cameras on race day. No Nascar fan will ever forget watching Busch smacking his butt in an obviously derrogatory gesture aimed at Spencer! Busch has since calmed (I blame his recent marriage and plastic surgery stint) and is no longer that excitable, except for his recent tantrum a few weeks ago at Daytona.



Tony Stewart, on the other hand, is still going strong as Nascar's #1 bad boy, especially since he has proved himself once again by being the other half of Busch's recent tantrum and is now on probation for the rest of the season. That's the thing about Stewart... he never fails to remind everyone that he is the bad boy.



The thing about these bad boys is that they have proved themselves within the sport; both Busch and Stewart are past Nascar Champions.



The baddest of Nascar's current bad boys is Robby Gordon. Unlike the others, Gordon is a single-team owner who has proved himself on basically every other racing circuit except Nascar. However, his temper and ridiculous on-track behavior have definitely put him into the Nascar record books.



Looking back on Gordon's behavior, I have found that he has actually taken the "bad boy" image past the point of anyone else in recent history. In fact, he is nearly out of control.



Gordon caught my attention the first time when he picked on Dale Earnhardt Jr. for a few years. Needless to say, that wasn't a good friend-making tactic for someone since it put the majority of Nascar fans against him merely because of who he was bullying. Since then, his behavior has become much worse.



Last season's incident at the Nationwide race in Canada was the icing on the cake for me; there was no turning back, Gordon was from that point on the baddest of the bad boys or an immature fool who shouldn't be allowed to race in another Nascar santioned event.



The fans at home, as well as the Nascar higher-ups, knew that Gordon was planning to dump the lead car the first chance he could get. Once he did that, he ignored the black flag that Nascar immediately threw to punish him for his actions and he went on to run the final laps of the race. Nascar continued to threaten him and eventually stopped scoring him but Gordon still would not pull in. He finished the race and preceeded to do "victory" donuts next to the actual winner of the race! Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought the age limit to drive in Nascar was 18, not 5!

This event in Canada opened my eyes to the true Robby Gordon. He is not actually the baddest of the bad boys, he is merely a spoiled brat.

So, it is now 2008 and the season is 2 weeks old; Gordon is already in the dog-house with Nascar.

After failing a technical inspection prior to the Daytona 500 due to an unapproved nose on his Dodge, Gordon was docked 100 points, fined $100,000 and his crew chief was suspended for 6 races. This punishment remains consistent with Nascar's policy on violations dealing with the new car style, but Robby Gordon apparently thinks he is above the law yet again.

He has now decided to appeal his punishment and, with help from his sponsor, t-shirts are being made to support his "cause", Rally for Robby, in hopes that Nascar will reverse their decision.

First of all, kudos to Nascar for staying consistent with their punishments; this should show drivers that it doesn't matter who you are you will be punished in the exact same way if you mess with the COT. Secondly, I would like to know why Robby Gordon thinks he deserves special treatment from the organization that he has constantly clashed with; if you don't like Nascar go back to IRL.

Also, to the two fans that Robby Gordon actually has, its a good thing this weekends race is in Vegas because if it was in Talladega and you were caught with one of those "Rally" shirts on you'd be getting your ass kicked by the fans who threw trash at the other Gordon.