Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: NASCAR makes right call in postponing race

Friday, Sept. 14, 2001 | 10:03 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand's motor sports notebook appears Friday. Reach him at bh@lasvegassun.com or 259-4089.

NASCAR on Thursday took the almost unprecedented -- and wholly appropriate -- action of postponing its Winston Cup race scheduled for Sunday at New Hampshire International Raceway because of the terrorist attacks Tuesday in New York and Washington.

Considering the track's proximity to the New York and Washington areas, NASCAR would have been foolish to go ahead with a race that had the potential of siphoning valuable resources (police, fire, emergency medical services, etc.) away from the disaster sites.

"This is a time for families to come together," NASCAR president Mike Helton said. "We felt that postponing this weekend's race was simply the right thing to do. We join the nation in mourning those who lost their lives, and pray that those wounded will recover fully."

It is believed to be only the second time NASCAR has postponed a Winston Cup race in the series' 53-year history for reasons other than weather. In 1998, the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway was postponed from July until October because of wildfires in central Florida.

Also on Thursday, the Indy Racing League followed NASCAR's lead and announced that it was postponing Sunday's Chevy 500 at Texas Motor Speedway until Oct. 6.

NASCAR's decision came on the heels of the National Football League's announcement that it was postponing all 15 of its games scheduled for Sunday. NASCAR also postponed its Craftsman Truck Series race scheduled for Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway as well as all of its sanctioned events -- including the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series event set for Saturday night at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Saturday night's NWRS event at The Bullring has been postponed until Sept.22.

LVMS general manager Chris Powell said he understood NASCAR's decision, but acknowledged he didn't completely agree with it.

"I respect NASCAR's decision but I would have preferred to have run that event," Powell said of the races at The Bullring. "I think we need to establish some sense of normalcy in our lives."

While most Winston Cup drivers said earlier in the week that they would prefer to race this weekend, virtually all were repeating the party line on Thursday following NASCAR's decision to postpone the race.

"As horrible as Tuesday was, we need to keep moving forward," Jeremy Mayfield said on Tuesday. "The easy thing would be the stay home, crawl into bed and pull the covers up over our heads. The hard thing, like (going on with the race), is usually the right thing to do."

On Thursday, however, Mayfield said, "As the week has progressed, I think the realization of how big this is really starting to hit home with a lot of people. The fact the rescue effort is going to continue well into next week, if not beyond, is a good reason for NASCAR to make the decision it made today."

Jeff Burton, on the other hand, has maintained since Tuesday that he would have preferred to have raced this weekend to demonstrate to the terrorists that America will bounce back from the attacks.

"There's part of me that wants to go race this weekend," Burton said. "I think it's important not only for me, but my family and for everybody in the country to try to get back to normalcy. At the same time ... we want to pay respect to the victims, the families (of) the victims and to the whole country in general for what's happened.

"It makes me mad. Part of my emotions in this thing is that I want to make sure that the idiots that did this don't win. With all the pain that they've caused, we've got to make sure they don't win and that's part of me wanting to get back to normalcy. I want to just shove that back into the face of these idiots and show them that we are resilient."

Thursday's two practice sessions at the new EuroSpeedway in Lausitz were called because of rain and CART officials have decided to cancel today's qualifying in hopes of getting in a pair of practice sessions. The field for Saturday's race will be set based on driver's points.

One notable driver absent from the track on Thursday was Michael Andretti, who was stranded in Pennsylvania because of this country's air travel restrictions.