Regan Smith - Overshadowed Underdog

Poor Regan Smith.
The guy just can’t catch a break. His “first” win was taken from him after a controversial last second pass at Talladega in 2008, a race many still refuse to acknowledge Tony Stewart as the winner of. A race that could’ve made him the next big star had he retained the win.
And then there’s tonight.

With this small team that only a select few (including myself) had any faith in, Smith finally grabs the brass ring in spectactular fashion, using some risky strategy and raw skill to hold off the season points leader for his first “official” career win in one of NASCAR’s crown jewel events, the second underdog win of the year, and arguably a bigger one than Trevor Bayne’s at Daytona.
Feel good moments like this are so few and far between in this sport in this age, where guys like Regan and Bayne can barely even get wins in lower tier series thanks to the same handful of drivers winning everything under the sun. This should be treated as a special occurrence. The biggest story in American motorsport right now.
Yet, Regan Smith has been overshadowed again, this time by Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.

Sure, Kyle and Kevin are easily the bigger stars here, and god knows how we as fans love a good Saturday night postrace throwdown. You can’t blame Fox for focusing on that. But it’s not exactly fair to Smith at all. The man scratched and clawed for this moment, with a team that three years ago was nothing more than a field filler running a partial schedule with Kenny Wallace at the wheel.
Regan said it himself. “I’m not supposed to win this race”. But he did, against all odds. He won one of the most prestigious events in the entire series, date notwithstanding. This should’ve been the biggest moment of the night, and far more important than two drivers fighting, no matter how big of names they are.
In a weird way, it reminds me of a recent WWE show.Instead of focusing on a guy who just won the World Title for the first time in emotional fashion, they decided to make a larger deal out of the biggest name in the company winning a 10th world title, completely overshadowing the more emotional, feel-good moment.
It’s the same thing here. The bigger names that have had their time in the spotlight are completely overshadowing the little guy who finally got a shining moment in the sun. Is this a huge story? Certainly. But in no way should the media have said “it’s more important than one of the bigger underdog wins of the Sprint era.”

So, here’s to you, Regan.

I would tell you to partake in the traditional Mountaineer celebration ritual, but I’m pretty sure burning couches isn’t good for your sponsor’s bottom line. Just enjoy this moment, because you damn sure earned this happy ending and damn sure deserve more love and attention from the fans and media than you’ve receieved tonight.

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Other thoughts on tonight’s event:
Not going to go into the Harvick/Shrub scuffle much.

Everyone knows how much of a Harvick fanboy I am and thus I’m not able to have an unbiased take. I’ll just say this:

What happened on the track, I can live with. I don’t agree with it, but since no one was hurt, I can deal. But what happened on pit road was inexcusable, and I’d say the exact same thing if the roles were reversed. You do NOT wreck someone on pit road intentionally after a race, no matter what the circumstances are. Not with all those crewmen, journalists, and fans running around.
As for penalties... As large of a dustup as this was, with the pit road altercation, and the teams themselves getting into it post-race, I’m actually expecting points taken away from both teams.
I’m still not a fan of the Fox coverage at all. From the cartoony way they present the sport, making it seem more like a sideshow and less like a legitimate competition, which is a slap in the face to all 43 men and their teams, to the utter incompetence of the announce crew (“I think his car took off by itself there!”), there’s usually nothing that gets me angrier on race weekend than their presentation. The sooner TNT takes over, the better. I’d even prefer ESPN’s “talk down to the viewer” coverage at this point.
I gave the race a 3-and-3/4 star rating in our Open Race Thread earlier tonight (which had nearly 500 comments, the most I’ve ever seen!), but you know what would’ve made the race better? About a hundred less miles. This one suffered from something quite a few events have this year. They’re just too long. Now I know shortening this race back down to 400 miles is NASCAR sacrilege, but with so many boring, spread out green runs, coupled with the fact that it didn’t end til around midnight, it’s just too much of a drain. If the racing were more competitive during those long green sections, I might not feel as strongly about this, but right now, it just drags on longer than it really should, and if not for this awesome community here, as well as the action at the end, I probably would’ve fallen asleep.
Finally, a fun bit of irony for Regan Smith. As noted above, the man he had his Talladega win given to in 2008 was Tony Stewart. Now, guess which Cup team supplied the pit crew for the 78 team tonight? None other than Stewart-Haas Racing. Funny how things work out, eh?