Brad Keselowski (12) flips after being nudged by Carl Edwards, top, during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt Tools 500 auto race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga., March 7, 2010.Joe Sebo
Rivalries in professional sport are as common as scandals in politics. Well, maybe not that common, but you get the point. They are a key element in what keeps fans interested and coming back for more. The primary function of sport, after all, is entertainment.
People take great pride in supporting their favourite team and a rivalry will make someone despise the enemy with equal dedication. How many Leafs fans enjoy watching the Senators lose? Try walking through the wrong part of New York wearing a Yankee hat and see what the Mets fans think of you.
The same is true for individual athletes. Whether it's Payton Manning vs. Tom Brady or Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, there can only be one winner and with such fierce competitors these rivalries breed in the heat of battle.
Motorsport is no different. Racing enthusiasts love a good rivalry. Current ones include Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski in NASCAR and the ever-present tension between Lewis Hamilton and most of the grid in Formula One. Some of the most revered drivers in history earned their respect while duking it out with their main rival. Mika Häkkinen was always a great driver, but it wasn't until his relentless on-track battles with Michael Schumacher that he earned his place among the legends of the sport. And there is no doubt that the Aryton Senna/Alain Prost battles of the late '80s and early '90s propelled both men's careers to staggering new heights.
And while all sports have rivalries, quite often the protagonists only meet a few times a year. Quarterbacks will only face off two or three times in a season. In tennis, the leading figures aren't guaranteed to play each other in every tournament. In racing, you get the chance to rub wheels with your arch enemy in every single event. It's one of the few sports that offers the opportunity for fireworks week in and week out with the drivers involved. Golf is another one, but those guy are forced to be too polite to properly fuel a rivalry.
You're probably thinking, "every sport has rivalries but motorsports get to see them play out more often, so what?" In most sports rivalries there is smack talk in the press and mind games played out publicly. The athletes don't think twice because they don't play this person that often and when they do they never have to actually interact with them. There are no immediate consequences.
Racing adversaries see each other every weekend. They have drivers meetings together. Autograph sessions. Press conferences. They could even be teammates and have to spend an enormous amount of time together at appearances and in team meetings and debriefs. There are so many opportunities to be in the same room, face-to-face with the person you were just slagging off in the press. When you are forced to see that person it ups the stakes a little. On top of that, bad blood can be brought onto the race track with dangerous consequences.
As a result, racers are often forced to get over incidents quickly and not add fuel to the fire. You are part of this travelling circus for 20-plus weekends a year and whether you like it or not, that guy you are supposed to hate is right there with you. The racing community is like a big family and as in any family there are some members that have issues with others. You have to find a way to deal with these issues or else they will get increasingly worse over the year and the energy you waste worrying about it inevitably detracts from your performance.
Some drivers turn these feelings into extra motivation to win. But often, when you focus all that energy on just beating that one person, then the 20-something others will out-drive you. It is a delicate balance and one that we have seen go both ways over the years.
I recently had a situation that was serious test to me as a sportsman. After qualifying on pole for the first race of the season, I was unceremoniously "drop kicked" out of the race in the first turn by the driver who qualified ninth. Incidents happen in racing and I get that. I have never in my career seen a driver try to pass eight cars in one corner. It would have been easy for me to explode on the other driver and create an instant enemy. I would then have to worry about him and take extra caution around him every time I saw him on track. It's not worth it. Yelling and screaming and name calling is easy. It was much more difficult to refrain, let him know my thoughts in a controlled manner and let it be.
If I had ranted, he would have become defensive and it would have translated on track. The way I handled it means that he accepted blame and if anything, he will be more cautious around me now, not wanting to make the same mistake.
Managing situations like this is a very difficult part of the sport and it is different from other sports. A driver can very often be defined in a fan's mind not by their on track achievements, but by a moment's lapse in judgment.
In my case, to make matters worse, the driver that took me out was my roommate. Like I said, the racing world is like a big family.