Busch, the mischievous driver for Huntersville-based Joe Gibbs Racing, has run afoul of the law, competitors and the shiny shoes from NASCAR headquarters during the nearly completed racing season, and the debris really hit the grill this month when he intentionally ran an opponent's vehicle into the wall during a truck race. NASCAR pulled Busch from the truck race, then suspended him from the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races he was scheduled to run the same weekend.
Busch was back this past weekend at Phoenix International Speedway, but not M&M's, whose representatives called Busch's conduct unacceptable and peeled its logos from his Sprint Cup car for the remaining races of 2011.
Good for M&M's for not candy-coating a star's misdeeds. Seeing Busch's Toyota circle the track with its hood a blank canvas — like those underfunded "start and park" cars with no major sponsors and no hope of even finishing a race — would have been a powerful message to all competitors.
But instead of M&M's being the dominant image on the car, it was another Busch sponsor, Interstate Batteries. That lends the impression that Interstate is an enabler of Busch's bad-boy act, and cuts off M&M's principled stand at the knees.
NASCAR has spent years trying to define its largely unwritten rules for the on-track conduct of drivers. But dollars speak loud enough to be heard even over Kyle Busch's engine at full throttle. Let a primary sponsor or two bail on drivers, Talkers note, and the nonsense will die as surely as an Interstate Battery in a car whose lights have been left on all night.
One day earlier
Talkers hate to talk out of school, so, when we make a mistake, we're committed to making it right.
In the Nov. 11 edition of the Lake Norman Citizen, Talkers noted that a certain online publication in Davidson (which posts its news on a daily basis) first reported on a lawsuit against the Town of Davidson six days after the suit was filed in Mecklenburg Superior Court. The founder and editor of the online news outlet sent an e-mail saying Talkers were mistaken, and demanding a correction.
He was right. We were wrong. The online newspaper reported the lawsuit five days after it was reported. The publisher of the Web site further denied he "attacked" this newspaper last year when he initiated a public dialogue over whether or not news outlets should publish the names of accused offenders in crime reporting or the listing of police reports.
Talkers apologize for the error.
