SPORTS E3 USA TODAY z FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019 z 3C
After Joey Logano’s tire specialist
slammed Denny Hamlin to the ground
amid a scrap following the Monster En-
ergy NASCAR Cup Series race on Sun-
day, Hamlin popping up uninjured ap-
pears as one of the biggest moments in
the playoffs.
If Hamlin had suffered an injury
when he hit the Martinsville Speedway
pavement, a 2019 title favorite would
have seen one of his best shots for a
championship come to an end.
While Hamlin didn’t suffer an injury,
the debate remains on how NASCAR can
balance driver-to-driver fights – which
combat the perception the drivers are
not as tough as those back in the rough-
and-tumble days of the sport – with
how much crews should get involved.
After the Hamlin-Logano scuffle,
NASCAR had a decision to make. Just a
week earlier, a Cole Custer crew mem-
ber pulled Tyler Reddick to the ground
during their shoving match following
the Xfinity Series race at Kansas.
NASCAR issued no penalties.
Determining the move on Hamlin to
be more aggressive and forceful,
NASCAR suspended Logano tire techni-
cian Dave Nichols Jr. for one race. How-
ever, it didn’t fine Nichols, even though
NASCAR’s rules give it the leeway to fine
him up to $100,000.
Losing a veteran tire specialist for a
race won’t help Logano’s No. 22 Team
Penske crew, but a one-race suspension
doesn’t rank as a huge penalty. And
NASCAR seemed almost apologetic,
with chief racing development officer
Steve O’Donnell telling SiriusXM he
didn’t feel Nichols meant to slam Ham-
lin down hard but more just wanted to
prevent Hamlin from throwing punches
at Logano.
By making it a judgment call,
NASCAR will continue to face decisions
on crew member involvement in fights.
Three races remain in the season as
the Cup Series heads this weekend to
Texas Motor Speedway, the site of one
of its biggest brawls in the last decade
when Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski
tangled in a 2014 fight that resulted in
three crew members receiving six-week
bans and another given three weeks off.
That incident has pretty much kept
crew members from throwing punches,
especially at drivers.
NASCAR’s decision-making from
Kansas and Martinsville indicates that a
crew member can grab and yank an op-
posing driver away to break up a fight as
long as that driver doesn’t fall hard to
the ground. With that philosophy, they
should hope the opponent is one of the
stocky drivers (Ryan Newman comes to
mind) who would be difficult to forceful-
ly tackle.
The easy answer for NASCAR: Imple-
ment a “third man rule” – that any crew
member who gets in the middle of a
fight earns a suspension. But the easy
route doesn’t always mean the best
route, and making that rule would seem
myopic when looking at the bigger pic-
ture.NASCAR can’t afford, after it works
so hard on safety aspects inside the car,
to have a driver miss a race because of a
black eye or a broken nose or a broken
hand thanks to a fistfight. While many
would love to see drivers rumble, throw
punches and have officials not break
them up until they fall to the ground, the
risk of injury outweighs the visuals.
Unless NASCAR wants to triple the
number of officials on pit road following
a race, it doesn’t have enough officials to
break up a fight. The people best
equipped to break up a fight? Crew
members. But how many and who?
Maybe NASCAR can say two crew
members can help break up a fight, and
teams can designate those crew mem-
bers on their crew roster prior to the race
weekend. Those two crew members can
be close enough to the cars after the
race. That way, race teams can put peo-
ple they feel are strong enough but also
can use good enough judgment not to
hurt the other driver.If anyone else gets involved, it has to
be more than a one-race suspension,
and NASCAR needs to consider crew
chief suspensions — a crew member
might think twice for seeking to fight if it
would impact that crew member’s boss.
NASCAR also would have to be cogni-
zant that suspending several people
from a team for the same race can turn
into a safety issue for some of the small-
er teams in the sport.
Texas Motor Speedway President Ed-
die Gossage already has Hamlin-Loga-
no posters on social media stating “Do
Ya Wanna Go,” quoting part of the con-
versation between Logano and Hamlin
postrace Martinsville. Hey, it’s promo-
tion.
NASCAR will use the fight to promote
the next race and the next race and
many more, so obvious it enjoys the
rage. But it still must figure out how to
handle it once they do go.
Bob Pockrass is a Fox Sports NASCAR
reporter. Follow him @bobpockrass.Bob Pockrass
Guest columnistCrew members separate Joey Logano, far left, and Denny Hamlin, bottom right, during an altercation on pit road Sunday
after the First Data 500 race at Martinsville Speedway.BRIAN LAWDERMILK/GETTY IMAGESDriver fights highlight issue of crews
SHANGHAI – Li Haotong has come a
long way in the HSBC Champions,
which he realized before hitting any of
his 64 shots Thursday that carried him
to a one-shot lead.
Standing next to him on the tee was
Phil Mickelson, a longtime golf idol. Li
was part of the HSBC junior program
when this World Golf Championships
event began in 2009, and he posed for a
photo with Lefty.
“My idol then, and my friend now,” Li
said. “Kind of fun.”
He found all sorts of enjoyment on as
perfect a day as can be found at Sheshan
International, with warm weather and
surprisingly calm conditions. Li felt in-
timidated the first time he played this
event when he was 18, and especially as
a 20-year-old in 2015 when he was one
shot out of the lead going into the final
round.
He enjoyed every minute Thursday,
and he gave the home crowd plenty to
cheer with his 8-under-par 64.
Li opened with two birdies and fin-
ished the back nine with two birdies.
And after his lone mistake on the par-
first hole, he responded with a 4-iron
that set up eagle and led to the loudest
cheer of a calm afternoon.
“Obviously, it would be great joy for
Chinese golfers and Chinese golf fans to
have a Chinese player winning a WGC-
HSBC Champions here in China,” Li
said. “But for the next three days, any-
thing could happen.”
He was one shot ahead of Victor Pe-
rez of France.
Among those two shots behind were
defending champion Xander Schauffele
and Adam Scott, who both stumbled at
the end.
Scott hit a thin shot out of a fairway
bunker on No. 9 into the water right of
the green and had to get up-and-down
to salvage bogey for his 66. Schauffele,
sick most of the week and still hoarse,
had a wedge to the par-5 eighth and
stayed on the upper shelf, leading to a
three-putt bogey in his round of 66.
Sungjae Im and Matt Fitzpatrick also
were at 66.
Rory McIlroy had three bogeys on
the back nine and was going nowhere
at even par until he ran off four straight
birdies on the front and got in the mix
quick with a 67.
The HSBC Champions is the final
event before Tiger Woods and Ernie
Els make their wild-card picks for the
Presidents Cup.
zBermuda Championship:Scottie
Scheffler closed with a bogey for a 9-
under 62 and a one-stroke lead Thurs-
day after the first round of the PGA
Tour’s inaugural Bermuda Champion-
ship in Southampton.
Scheffler played his opening nine at
Port Royal Golf Club in 6-under 29,
making an eagle on the par-5 17th. He
added birdies on Nos. 2, 4, 6 and 7 be-
fore dropping the stroke on the par-
ninth.
The 23-year-old former University
of Texas player won twice last year on
the Korn Ferry Tour and earned fully
exempt PGA Tour status by leading the
Korn Ferry’s combined points list for
the regular season and finals. He tied
for seventh in September at The
Greenbrier in his first start of the sea-
son and made the cuts in his other
three events.
Wes Roach was second. Rob Oppen-
heim, Bo Hoag and Russell Knox shot
64.Li delights home
crowd in Shanghai
Doug Ferguson
The Associated Press
Li Haotong shot 64 in Shanghai to
take the first-round lead in the HSBC
Champions. WU HONG/EPA-EFEAUSTIN, Texas – Lewis Hamilton
has a certain love affair with the rolling
hills and scrubland in the heart of
Texas.
It’s easy to see why. The Mercedes
driver has been almost invincible here,
with five wins at the United States
Grand Prix since 2012, including a sea-
son championship secured in 2015.
That makes it an almost perfect
spot for more.
Win another race and another
championship on Sunday and the
Mercedes driver will sit all alone in
second in Formula One history, with
only a short step left to reach the top.
The British driver is on the cusp of
securing a sixth career championship
that would move him past Argentina’s
Juan Manuel Fangio, the “Godfather”
of F1 drivers, and within one of the rec-
ord seven won by Germany’s Michael
Schumacher, who is still regarded as
the sport’s greatest champion.
Hamilton should have little trouble
doing it. All he needs to do is finish
eighth or higher on Sunday.
“It’s been a good hunting ground for
me, so very excited to go there and who
knows whether we can get the job
done?” Hamilton said. “We’ll hopefully
have a good race there.”
Hamilton nearly closed out the
championship last weekend with his
surprising win in Mexico City, but
teammate Valtteri Bottas’ third-place
finish pushed the title chase into an-
other week. Bottas is the only other
driver still mathematically in the
championship hunt, but just barely.
“I don’t mind,” Hamilton said after
not quite closing it out. “I love racing.”
Hamilton didn’t win the Texas race
last year, finishing third as Kimi Raik-
konen took the checkered flag. But he
was in spectacular form Sunday in
Mexico City, getting his 10th win of the
season on a track that favored rivals
Red Bull and Ferrari.
Hamilton is a de facto spokesman
for growing Formula One in the U.S.
Still young and stylish at 34, an envi-ronmental activist on social media,
Hamilton is a valuable face and force for
promoting the series in America, which
hasn’t been as easy as F1 officials hoped
when they returned to American soil
with the Texas track and race in 2012.
Efforts to start other races haven’t
been so easy. A dream race in Miami
couldn’t take hold in the downtown ven-
ue on Biscayne Bay the series wanted
and the current idea of racing around
the parking lot of the stadium where the
NFL’s Dolphins play has run into fierce
opposition from locals.
The Texas race has been a stronghold
and Hamilton still does his part. He was
in New York City with an event in Times
Square before coming to Austin.
Hamilton sees himself – the first and
still only black driver in Formula One
who comes from a middle class family –
as a story that can be inspiring to an
American audience. “I think my story
and my family’s story is something that
a lot of people in different countries can
relate to,” Hamilton said.
Ferrari and Red Bull could still put up
a fight Sunday at the Circuit of the
Americas. Ferrari has started on pole
the last six races and the U.S. Grand Prix
winner has come from the front row ev-
ery year since the Texas track opened.
The recent runs from pole have pro-
duced just three victories however, and
none since Singapore on Sept. 22.Hamilton on goodground at US Grand PrixJim Vertuno
The Associated PressFormula One’s Lewis Hamilton has won
the United States Grand Prix five
times.CHARLES COATES/GETTY IMAGES