This is the Statt Mann, Baby. It’s time to Scatt a Little Bit…

A sports car team owner this week told me he was thankful there was no hazing problems in his sport.

I didn’t disagree. But I think hazing takes all forms in motor racing. There are things set aside for newcomers. Special colored bumpers and stripes are obvious concessions for rookies. Then there’s the pressure applied on a race track when veteran drivers lean on newcomers to find out what the newcomer’s made of. If the newcomer ends up in the wall, tough.

But before the motor racing community turns its nose up at the NFL think about some of the most memorable moments in racing.

I’m thinking mostly about the Daytona 500 fight when two brothers took on Cale Yarborough back in 1979. Many say that’s when NASCAR stock car racing went national.

There’ve been any number of fights in the garage and the pits through the years. Just two weeks ago two teams in the truck series nearly came to blows. It ended with one crew member throwing a sledge hammer at another team’s truck.

It’s easy to dismiss fights in the garage with a simple, boys will be boys. Or the most tired of all: rubbin’s racin.

You’d like to believe, though, that grown men can respect each other enough to not go Incognito on their fellow drivers. But, sadly, “boys will be boys” rings with more truth than we can sometimes imagine.

Peace.