FORT WORTH – As it concerns the modern-day phenomenon of the art of vulgarity in the public square, NASCAR was way ahead of its time.
What once was an act that risked a public spanking from the chairman of the FCC is today seemingly commonplace.
“The Democrats have to now decide whether they will continue to defraud the public with ridiculous bullshit,” the president of the United States said a few days ago at a public event in Michigan.
Cursing in the public square is today as acceptable as it is in a Hollywood script. It is as customary as ad placement in NASCAR. It’s everywhere.
Now, I don’t have the moral authority to police the square. I rejected out of hand Puritanism two or three weeks into life.
Nor is this a case of naiveté.
I’ve heard the tapes of Richard Nixon musing late night while swimming in scotch. Dale Earnhardt Sr. probably never sought to dive into the language when a simple four letters would suffice. Cussing can be very efficient.
Sports figures, particularly our colorful racing brethren, have always had a reputation for language slips. The competition can be volatile, creating scenes of the raw human emotion more often reserved for Jerry Springer or Morton Downey Jr.
Bob Knight could write a book on the art.
However, in those days, they at least tried to shield the women and children.
So, on Sunday, into the Texas Motor Speedway media center walked an elated Denny Hamlin, winner of the just completed O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, the first of NASCAR’s twice-yearly visits to Dallas-Fort Worth. He wasn’t considered good value entering the race.
“Oh, shit,” the reigning Daytona 500 king muttered over the hot mic as he had trouble with his chair at the dais.
A few minutes later, of crew chief Christopher Gabehart’s confidence in the No. 11 Toyota before the race, Hamlin waxed poetic: “I’ll be honest with you, I thought he was full of shit.”
To be a fly on the wall during the race’s 334 laps.
Hamlin won despite taking a pistol to his foot. Hamlin had to rally back from two pit road penalties, once for pitting and another for an uncontrolled tire. All that was missing seemed to be a lug nut violation or some such.
It was unlikely he handled it by meditating while reciting Longfellow.
Hamlin regained the lead with 11 laps left by going fuel only in his final green-flag pit stop.
There was a time when NASCAR would have thrown the book at Hamlin’s four-letter fetish. He has a reputation.
Two years ago, after he and Chase Elliott got into it after Hamlin spun him out, he had a simple explanation for what had happened.
“Everybody wrecked everyone there at the end. It was complete bullshit, chaos,” Hamlin said in a post-race interview.
NASCAR looked the other way, taking no action of reprimand.
This is considered enlightenment in 2019.
Only 13 years before, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was hit with a $10,000 fine by NASCAR for getting loose with the Queen’s English while celebrating in Victory Lane in Talladega.
Junior, what does the fifth victory at that track mean to your series championship prospects?
“It don’t mean shit right now. Daddy’s done won here 10 times. I gotta do a little bit more winnin’.”
He was also docked 25 points in the championship standings. Earlier that same season, Johnny Sauter, racing in what today is the Xfinity Series, took it on the nose, fined $25,000 for something said on a radio interview that once upon a time would’ve been remedied by a washing of the mouth out with soap by a mother determined to raise a gentleman.
Junior didn’t take his situation well. Censorship is unbecoming. And what do they want, he wondered, effin’ robots?
“Of course, we don’t need to promote that [kind of language],” he said at the time. “But if a guy is in Victory Lane jumping up and down and lets an [expletive] slip out, I don’t think it’s something we need to go hammering on.”
After all, these are the descendants of moonshine outlaws.
Academia has gotten in on studying swearing.
Richard Stephens, a lecturer of psychology at England’s Keele University, found in his research that swearing increases pain tolerance.
Apparently, swearing triggers the body’s acute stress response consistent with “fight or flight.”
“Indeed, this research demonstrates that repeating a swear word during an ice water challenge produces an increase in heart rate, consistent with an aroused autonomic nervous system as seen during moments of acute stress.
“This same phenomenon is sometimes talked about as the ‘fight or flight’ response and is well known to incorporate a range of elevated bodily responses. One example is the release of endorphins, which contributes to a phenomenon known as stress-induced analgesia — potentially explaining why swearing reduces pain.”
Stephens took his research a step further: Does swearing improve athletic performance?
He found that it did – a 4.6 percent increase in peak power and a 2.8 percent increase in average power when cursing — but likely for a different reason.
It’s an “I-don’t-care” mind-set, a letting go, “where any concerns that overexertion may cause injury or embarrassment become more easily put aside.”
Hmmm.
Performance enhancing f-bombs?
Then again, studies have also reportedly indicated that cursing is a sign of intelligence.
On that one, I can tell you from firsthand experience, that’s a bunch of bullshit.
(Headline photo by Stephen A. Arce/ASP, Inc.)
