Slams against Petty and NASCAR fans by Washington state lawmakers sidetrack legitimate debate

International Speedway Corporation tried last week to make some headway toward getting a track built near Seattle, but that’s not exactly how things worked out.

ISC had Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Greg Biffle travel to Washington state to talk to legislators and try to drum up support for a bill that would help create the public funding portion of the track project.

There’s plenty of resistance to the idea of public money being used to pay for any sports facility, whether it be in Washington state or anywhere else. And many of the newspaper editorial writers in the Seattle area seem steadfastly opposed to the bill in question because they question its fiscal wisdom.

All of that is completely fair game. So, too, is opposition to the track project from the folks in Kitsap County, where the site ISC prefers is located.

Some of them don’t want a major sports facility built close to where they live. They don’t want their lives upset by the crowds that would come in and by development that might be spawned by having the track in their area.

That’s the kind of public debate that’s completely warranted when a project the scope of a NASCAR track is proposed. What’s troubling, though, is how tawdry the debate grew thanks to words that came out of the mouths of two elected officials during the racers’ visits to their state.

First, House Speaker Frank Chopp referred to Petty, the seven-time Cup series champion, as “that guy who got picked up for a DUI.”

Uh, no. Not only has Petty never been picked up for driving under the influence, he has never allowed his race teams to be sponsored by any form of alcoholic beverage because he promised his mother he never would.

Chopp said he “wasn’t sure” Petty was the guy he was thinking of, so I guess he thought that made it OK. Later, he apologized and called the remark “inappropriate and wrong.”

Well, at least he got that part right.

Then there’s House member Larry Seaquist (who, for the record, is a Democrat as is Chopp).

Mr. Seaquist offered the following opinion when the idea of having NASCAR fans in the state came up: “These people are not the kind of people you would want living next door to you. They'd be the ones with the junky cars in the front yard and would try to slip around the law.”

Hmmm. That sounds like a stereotype, doesn’t it? That’d be sort of like stating that anyone who lives in Seattle has webbed feet (because it rains so much there, you know) and puts double-caff, half-fat lattes in their babies’ bottles (since the only thing they drink there is coffee).

That would be silly of course. But there’s one judgment here that I can make based solely on what was said this week on this topic, and that’s that Richard Petty has forgotten more about class and respect than at least two pinheads in the Washington state legislature.