Elliott Sadler and Kurt Busch Two Sides of the Same Coin

After Elliott Sadler was wrecked out of the lead in the Darlington Nationwide race one month ago, he was met in the garage by members of the ESPN broadcast crew. The Virginia native could have blown a fuse, or blown off the media completely. But instead, he  chose to talk to the cameras and what the fans saw was one of the classiest interviews, maybe in the recent history of the sport.

Sadler's winning run was ended on the frontstrech by Logano, who would go on to win the race, after an ill-advised bump draft from the Gibbs Racing driver. But Sadler talked about not being able to change what happened, picking up and going to Charlotte the next week and his team simply giving the rest of the season their all. No bashing Logano and, more importantly, no cussing out the media members who came for his side of the incident.

But while Sadler set this spectacular example just a few weeks before, fans were treated to the other side of the coin just three weeks later in Dover.

After the Nationwide race at the Monster Mile on Saturday, Kurt Busch was involved in a heated confrontation with Sporting News writer and veteran Nascar reporter, Bob Pockrass after finishing fourth.

Pockrass, a longtime motorsports writer who is well respected in his field and the garage area alike, simply asked Busch if his being on probation (from an incident in the Darlington Cup race with Ryan Newman's team) affected the way he raced Justin Allgaier after the two had a run-in on track. Busch's response was "It (the probation) refrains me from not beating the sh*t out of you right now because you ask me stupid questions."

 After taking a day to deliberate, Nascar suspended Busch from all on-track activity in Pocono the next week, meaning that David Reutimann would move from his familiar No. 10 car to race Busch's No. 51 at the "Tricky Triangle" and Busch will meet with his team owner, James Finch, Tuesday to discuss his future with the team.

This may have been a bit of a drastic move by the sanctioning body, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

This was Busch's fourth high-profile altercation with the media since last September in Richmond, where he had to be physically restrained on pit road and tore up the transcript of an earlier interview with another reporter. There was also that viral YouTube video where the driver cussed out ESPN pit reporter, Dr. Jerry Punch, and his camera crew in Homestead last November.

There is no doubt that Kurt Busch is one of the best in the sport. He wouldn't have won the 2004 championship if he wasn't. But this has nothing to do with Busch's driving record. Nascar is a team sport and it's high time he got the message that you can't get respect unless you give it first. If he continues to treat people like dirt, then this is what is going to keep happening to him.

If Busch didn't want to answer Pockrass' question, he should have just declined to answer it and walked away. It's just that simple. But instead, he threatened Pockrass and made a scene. Busch has always been a volatile personality in the garage and has little respect for the sport, it's drivers, it's teams and it's fans. But, for some reason, he expects to get the same respect he refuses to show others shown to him. That isn' how it works Kurt.

This may have been a harsh move by Nascar, but it might just show Busch that he needs this sport a lot more than it needs him. In Pocono, Reutimann will slip into Busch's ride and the race will go on without him, whether he wants to believe it or not.

Busch may just get one last shot with Phoenix Racing. But, with an underfunded team who can't afford to wreck anymore cars and will have to sell their hot-headed driver to a sponsor, it may not be worth the risk involved. It was rumored Busch was a blip on Joe Gibbs Racing's radar for next season, but now it appears that blip has vanished. Unless he learns some manners quickly, watching races from the couch may just become a regular occurrence for this former champion.