Go to any race track and you will find that gossip, rumors, and speculation, are as much a part of the racing world as are the cars and drivers. And if you don’t believe this, then look at NASCAR and the media circus that surrounds it! Why do you think that Internet sites that post the latest hearsay about NASCAR are so wildly popular? It has little to do with hard, confirmed news stories and much more to do with rumor, speculation, and general spin and disinformation.
Racing people love this stuff, and the Internet has only increased the spread of rumors and disinformation within the racing community at large. In recent years it has become necessary for the Nextel Cup and Busch Series teams to hire PR people to help control and deflect rumors because of the damage they can do to business deals and sponsorships, and you can bet some of the same sort of damage is occurring at the local level as well.
And while the media rumor circus seems to drive NASCAR and the Nextel Cup Series, do not for one moment assume that local race drivers and fans are not subjected to the same sort of disinformation, or that they do not create it either. Just about any racing facility in the United States has its own rumor mill, and it is the bane of owners, promoters, and everyone else who has a job trying to run a racing facility or a racing series.
No one is immune and everyone is a potential target. And more than once the best made plans of a owner or promoter have been derailed by speculation or disinformation, and in some cases it may have directly contributed to the demise of yet another local race track.
Depending on where you call home the rumor mill may operate year round, or it may reach a peak at a particular point in the racing season. At my home track the rumor mill cranks up at about mid season and gradually picks up speed toward the end of racing.
Sometimes there are what I term as “annual” rumors, which seem to make the rounds almost every year regardless as to whether they ever come true or not, and there are the “whacko” rumors that seem to come from somewhere out in left field and are based on little, if any, logical reasoning.
There also are rumors that everyone spreads because they want them to come true, and those that are spread because everyone fears that they may come true. And then on top of it all, there are the rumors that are truth that has leaked out either by accident or through a deliberate act. These rumors sometimes are very harmful to business deals and potential sponsorships, and can cost a racing facility thousands of dollars.
I suppose it is up to us as individuals to think for ourselves and judge the credibility of anything we hear before we repeat it, but human nature drives us to do otherwise. Many of us cannot wait to repeat the information, be it credible or not, and some of us even try to embellish it as well. Even when we cannot believe the story ourselves, we have a need to spread it, just because it was spread to us.
This keeps the rumor mill going, and it sometimes results in people making choices based on disinformation, spin, and speculation. The best policy to have when presented with some sort of rumor material is to go to the source and ask, but most of us never do that. Instead, we assume that the source will give us a false answer anyway so why bother, when the opposite may be true. Go to almost any speedway owner or promoter and ask how many people come to them and ask honestly about something that is going around. Chances are you will discover that very few people will ask and most will simply spread the rumor, although few will admit to actually doing it.
But not all rumors that float around are completely false.
Some have a basis in truth, or maybe a possible truth. Before I moved to Florida I spent a few years working for a company that owned and operated a string of nightclubs in South Carolina, North Carolina, and northeast Georgia. My job was announcing, hosting live contests, and doing promotional work for the company, and as part of my job I sat in on countless planning meetings where future changes and promotions were discussed. Many times before major changes or new policies were put into place, the company president would deliberately start rumors in order to gauge reaction to the possible changes, and depending on whether the overall reaction was positive or negative he would make final decisions from there. And this business practice was easy enough to do because people were more than happy to spread any information, or disinformation, that he might plant within the company. All he had to do was have someone leak the information and it would go from there, usually quite quickly.
We must keep in mind that people in charge are always looking at options to increase profits, so they look into a variety of ways in which to do that. Let us speculate for a moment about a track owner or promoter who wants to know if more money could be made if the speedway were a dirt track instead of a paved facility.
After all, dirt seems to be all the rage right now, so why not look into it? That person might make phone calls and refer to the Internet for information, or they might visit dirt tracks and gather information that way. And they might even gauge reaction by doing what my former boss used to do and spread a rumor or two. It does not mean that the owner/promoter was definitely going to make that change. It only means that the option was considered, and quite possibly it was discovered that the initial expense of such a venture made it too risky to do, and therefore the whole idea was abandoned.
OK, so someone overheard the owner talking on the phone discussing bulldozing the pavement and what would be involved in maintaining a dirt track. Maybe the owner asked a few questions of someone who had more dirt track experience. It in no way means that the pavement is going to be pulled up, and if it is a major concern for anyone then the best course of action is to privately ask the owner/promoter about it. Chances are you will get an honest answer, or be able to see through a lie.
One of the most common rumors these days at local tracks is the annual sell off/shutdown rumors. Often rumors have a shred of truth that they sprout from, and these rumors come from the fact that too often the real estate that a track occupies has far more value than the track itself. So drivers and fans often spread such rumors because of their fear that the track will close, and in many cases the rumors have unfortunately come true.
There is the old saying that you should be careful what you wish for because you might get it, and in the case of closed speedways that has rang very true. But if we fear that the track will be sold to developers why do we perpetuate the whole process by rumor mongering? Why don’t we be proactive and assist the owner of the facility in making it more profitable instead spreading negativity that actually hurts the track?
For some reason logic does not play into it, does it?
And nothing is more frustrating to a track owner or promoter than to be out in the community attempting to sell sponsorships for the next racing season when drivers and fans have been out there throwing hints that the place is up for sale or may shut down. Word travels fast, and most business owners are not going to invest money in advertising that they might not get in return.
Meanwhile the tracks depend on sponsorships as much as the drivers do in order to finance parts of their operation, and yet their ability to get that cash flow is being trampled by the very people who want the track to succeed. It makes little sense, and yet that is how it normally plays itself out.
Another very common rumor is the old, “so-and-so is cheating” rumor. If a particular driver always seems to race from the back to the front every week at a certain track, and that driver never ventures to another track to try their skills in another venue, then the other drivers naturally assume that something is up with that situation.
This is especially true if the car gets torn down and nothing is found. Perhaps the track and the tech man is in on it? Perhaps this is blatant favoritism? Such things are hard to prove, especially in cases where someone is turning a blind eye, but my personal advice is to put up the challenge money and see what transpires. And when you consider all of the possibilities it just as likely could be a case of a driver who knows how to drive a particular track well, or in other words a “one track wonder.”
Some drivers may also have far greater set up skills than others and have maintained an edge in that way. It is likely not a matter of blatant cheating or even more likely not a matter of the track allowing someone to cheat, but something else entirely. Still the rumors will persist and the track usually is the one that suffers from it. The rumors make other drivers feel as if the track is unfair or playing favorites, so they do their racing somewhere else.
Rumors have been around the racing world for as long as racing has been around, but in more recent years the media has had a hand in exacerbating the situation. While most media outlets are responsible with what they publish and confirm their sources, some internet sites are built on a foundation of hearsay and rumors, and most racing message boards are littered with posts from people with good intentions, but who are doing more damage than good. The internet and the media is just another complication added to the mix, and while much of it works to get the news and good information out there, some of it serves to spread rumors to more people much faster.
And as users of these new tools, we need to use our brains and learn to identify fact from rumor. Too many of us are too quick to believe that because it is there, then it must be true! Unfortunately that is not the case, and if we take a closer look we can plainly see that we are being misled. This is not the fault of those who run these sites, nor is it the fault of the sites themselves. It is our fault for being too gullible and too quick to accept whatever we see as fact.
When looking at information online we have to be able to determine what is credible, confirmed, and truthful, compared to what is speculative information gleaned fro unidentified sources. There is a huge difference between the two, and one is positive while the other is very negative. Websites do not always plainly state where information comes from or whether it is from more than one confirmed source of not, so we as readers need to always remember that in the end we have the final determination as to whether to believe it or not. What makes this decision all the more important is that if we are wrong we can make ourselves look quite foolish, and also hurt others as well. And let us not forget that even the newspapers and the broadcast media make mistakes from time to time, so everything out there is not always as it seems, no matter who says so!
There is one more point that I should make about rumors before bringing this to a close, and that is the fact that rumors may, or may not, be true. As someone recently said to me during a practice session at Ocala Speedway, the best place to hide the truth is in a whole pile of rumors, so be careful not to disregard things just because they appear to be part of an overall pattern of disinformation.
And remember that rumors usually sprout from some amount of truth in the first place, and sometimes that shred of truth is bigger than we might think that it is. Still, the best method to use when presented with information is to confirm it yourself. Ask questions and get some answers before you spread it or believe it.
No matter how much I may complain about the rumor mill and warn of the damage that it can do, I do not expect anyone to change anything when it comes to how the rumors begin and spread. After all, we as members of the racing community have grown fond of the rumors and apparently get quite a kick from spreading them and hearing them, while the owners and promoters have adapted and have ways to deflect them. And I have to admit that it is interesting to hear what people come up with next, and to see how far some of it will go.
Truth be known, rumors rarely have a positive impact whether it be about racing or anything else. And despite knowing this we still insist on speculating and repeating that which we hear, even in situations where we know that the information is likely to be untrue.
Perhaps it is our desire to be in the know that makes us listen in the first place, and our desire to appear in the information loop that drives us to repeat that which we hear. Then again, maybe it’s more a matter of human nature than anything else.
Whatever the reasons for it, we need to remember that spreading rumors is not going to promote and assist that which we want more than anything else, and that is to be able to race.
-BJ CAVIN currently announces and writes for Ocala Speedway in Florida. His personal blog is on MySpace. His Column, “A Closer Look with BJ Cavin” appears on Real Racin USA each Tuesday.
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