NASCAR may be willing to let drivers be a little bit more themselves this year, but that doesn't mean the PR reps have all bought in.
During a televised post-race interview on Thursday, after which A.J. Allmendinger failed to qualify for the Daytona 500 in the first of 2 Gatorade Duels, the driver of the No. 84 Red Bull Toyota was distraught. He said that it "pretty much sucks" to miss the show for the 2nd straight year, and that he had driven his "ass off trying to get back to the front to have a chance."
Exceptionally candid comments that painted the side of Allmendinger we'd heard of before he got to NASCAR -- that he was emotional and brash, a younger, hipper version of another former open-wheel driver who also hails from Texas. A guy named A.J. Foyt.
But the Toyota folks apparently think Red Bull must have some type of "vanilla" flavor due out this summer, and they wanted to introduce it this week at Daytona.
In the Toyota transcript of Allmendinger's interview distributed to the print media, the words attributed to Allmendinger were not his own. According to the transcript, Allmendinger said "this pretty much stinks" and he "ran my butt off." In neither case were there parentheses around "stinks" or "butt" to note that the quotation had been modified.
The Dodge folks could easily have played around with quotes, too -- but that manufacturer opted, rightly so, to take the high road with Ryan Newman when he was critical of another Dodge driver.
"(Dale Earnhardt Jr.) made the pass and I tried to pass him back, and (Reed) Sorenson went with him," Newman said. "Way for the Dodges to stick together there."
It was a quote that easily could have been left off that particular transcript, but given the increasingly limited access to Sprint Cup Series drivers, give Dodge credit for helping do its part to build the bridge from drivers to fans that runs through the media. It's also a side of Newman (and a bunch of other drivers, too) that people like -- they are competitive to a fault and losing stings. It's why they're good.
Hey, this sport may not always be pretty, but it's ever more important to allow these guys to be themselves. NASCAR's bought into that for 2008; now it's time for everybody else to get on board, too -- including the buttoned-up Toyota folks.
2 comments:
Travis,
You're confused on what you're reporting on. The Red Bull Racing Team release - put out by the Red Bull PR Reps - had AJ's original comments of "sucks" and "ass" in it. It was the Toyota Motorsports release that had to modify the comments to say "sucks" and "butt." You should understand that Toyota is a more traditional, corporate company than Red Bull and that not everything Red Bull puts out is compatible with Toyota's messaging.
Thanks for the clarification -- and though it absolves Red Bull of responsibility for tampering with quotes, it certainly doesn't absolve Toyota.
The greater point here is that if a quote is altered in any way, it should be noted in the transcript. If print/web reporters changed quotes by dressing them up -- or dressing them down -- it could be construed as a signficant ethical violation.
TB
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