The pace car pandemonium shall pass

I get asked all the time why NASCAR won't sell its Sprint Cup rulebook to anybody who wants a copy.

I think part of the reason is that NASCAR knows its fans would sit there with the rulebook every Sunday and try to read every line on every page and find someway to claim that somebody is getting unfair treatment or an unfair advantage. Golf fans do that to the point of nausea - some poor guy kneels under a tree to hit a shot and puts a towel down to keep from ruining his pants and 200 nerds call the USGA to say he's "building a stance!"

This is relevant today because of what happened near the end of Sunday's LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway. Dale Earnhardt Jr., trying to save fuel in his Chevrolet, was hitting the accelerator to build up a little speed and then cutting off his engine to coast as far as he could.

In doing that, he surged ahead of the pace car that had the field in tow behind it. And people lost their minds.

I do not know the specific language in the rulebook about passing the pace car because, to be brutally honest, I have somehow managed to misplace the rulebook I got at the start of the season. It's here somewhere, but you know how that goes.

But I do know there's a rule that says you can't pass the pace car. I also know, though, why that rule is there. It's to keep somebody from making up a lap he doesn't deserve. Let's say a guy comes off pit road just a little bit late and is pretty much alongside the pace car. He could speed up and pass the pace car to try to stay on the lead lap.

That's why the rule is there. It's not there to set some imaginary force field through which no car shall pass.

If Earnhardt Jr. had been running ninth and doing the same thing to try to save fuel, he would have pulled to the apron and done the same thing. He might have passed two or three cars in front of him momentarily, and there's a rule against that, too, at least technically. But if he goes right back to his spot when he's done coasting, there's no advantage gained.

I've been known to be a stickler for rules and someone who believes penalties for violations should be clear and, to some, harsh. For the most part, that's true.

But if you read carefully what I've said on the topic, you'll realize that in almost all cases I've talked about NASCAR dropping the hammer only after a violation has been called.

NASCAR officiates the sport. Where they get in trouble with me is how they penalize people after finding violations. I've never said NASCAR doesn't have the job of calling the violation, and part of that is deciding how certain things are called.

In baseball, a shortstop doesn't always have the ball in his hand when he tags second on a double play. Heck, sometimes he doesn't even tag the base. But consistently that "phantom tag" is called as an out. If umpires one day just started calling that the other way with no explanation or warning, that'd be wrong.

Last year at Kansas, Greg Biffle was fighting fuel issues while leading the race late and some fans didn't like how NASCAR officiated that. They freaked out then, too, to be honest.

But NASCAR reacted the same way there as they did Sunday. NASCAR did not determine the winner of a race based on some literal, overly technical reading of a rule, and I still think that was the right no-call. I feel the same way about what happened Sunday at Michigan.