Junior win puts NASCAR's focus back on right track

As chairman and CEO of NASCAR, Brian France strives to be objective.

Yet it came as no surprise last offseason when he publicly admitted -- on more than one occasion -- that it would be great for the Sprint Cup Series if Dale Earnhardt Jr. would start winning races again. Hey, France was only being honest.

The fact is, love him or hate him (there seem to be a whole lot more of the former, fewer of the latter, and virtually no one left in between), Earnhardt's victory Sunday in the LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway was exactly what NASCAR needed. It broke a 76-race winless streak for Earnhardt, who won the 18th Cup race of his career.

France had no idea at the time of his initial statements about Earnhardt just how well-timed Junior's belated return to Victory Lane could be or would be for the sanctioning body that often is accused by its critics of attempting to script too much of the sport.

The script went awry last Tuesday when Mauricia Grant, a former NASCAR official who is black, filed a $225 million lawsuit against France's organization, alleging racial and sexual discrimination and wrongful termination.

Subsequent attempts to have the world go according to their own carefully crafted script were mixed over the weekend, beginning with a hastily called, closed-door meeting between high-ranking NASCAR officials, drivers and car owners.

The meeting was held Friday at MIS, not MI5 -- that secret-service arm of the British intelligence community made famous by the mythical James Bond. Hence, confusion reigned over a thinly veiled attempt at secrecy.

In the end, it became clear that the drivers were the ones telling the closer version of the truth. The irony there is that they were being told to hush by the same NASCAR officials who insisted at the beginning of the season that they wanted the drivers to display more of their personalities, to let their opinions flow forth without fear of constant intervention or reprimand on NASCAR's part.

What the meeting really appeared to be was diversion -- as in diversion from the omnipresent diversity issue. It gave the media something else to focus on besides the lawsuit that had been dominating all the headlines.

France's folly
To his credit, France held an impromptu news conference at MIS one day later, attempting to explain NASCAR's position as it continues "an ongoing investigation" into Grant's very serious allegations. He warned that more must be learned, and made it a point -- repeatedly -- to say that had Grant followed clear company policy and filed formal complaints about the incidents alleged in the lawsuit, the matter could have been resolved before it reached this point.

While that may be true enough, Grant has alleged that she did tell superiors of his complaints. She contends in the lawsuit that she ultimately was wrongfully terminated because of it.

If Grant is telling the truth, shame on NASCAR. If she isn't, shame on her.

Hopefully the truth will come out some day, and some day soon. In the meantime, NASCAR should use this as a wakeup call to monitor the garage area even more closely when it comes to promoting racial and gender diversity and making absolutely certain everyone involved understands all of the parameters and boundaries that must be observed to make it work. Those who don't -- or perhaps didn't in Grant's case -- should be dismissed from their jobs immediately.

In the meantime, the sport must go on. The season must continue.

That's where Earnhardt comes in, and why the first victory in a points race in more than two years by the sport's most popular driver could not have come at a more opportune time.

Nothing could have served a better purpose to take at least some of the focus off all the side shows transpiring away from the track and put it back on the racing itself.

Serious stuff
This isn't to diminish the enormity of Grant's allegations in her lawsuit. They should be taken very seriously indeed, and whether this ends up being settled out of court or not, NASCAR should use the occasion to better itself.

Change never comes easily, and permanent change doesn't usually come quickly or without controversy.

But as important as this ongoing story about alleged racial and sexual discrimination is, there are other important storylines in NASCAR that deserve exploration as well. Some of them even involve the actual racing being done on the track.

Earnhardt's victory was monumental not only for himself, but also for his new car owner, Rick Hendrick, and for his manufacturer, Chevrolet. Every team seeks the bragging rights that come with winning at Michigan, in the very shadow of the city that houses the Big Three manufacturers who have helped build NASCAR -- Chevy, Ford and Chrysler.

Sunday's race was somewhat of a snoozefest over the first 140 laps of the 200-lap event, but who remembers that after the fantastic and riveting finish? And what does it say about the sport that the top four finishers drove a Chevrolet (Earnhardt), a Dodge (Kasey Kahne), a Ford (Matt Kenseth) and a Toyota (Brian Vickers)?

The lawsuit filed by Grant has cast a cloud over the sport, and rightly so if even a fraction of her allegations prove true. Hopefully, one way or another, it will lead to positive change.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other subjects that deserve some attention, too. Earnhardt's victory served as a reminder of that.