Gumbel Grumbles

In his most recent HBO sports expose, Bryant Gumbel offered a snide swipe at Danica Patrick for an incident last week at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He whined that after "hitting a member of another team" with her race car in the pit lane, she was neither contrite nor apologetic.

Gumbel, in the space of just a few seconds, further proved that which many of us already believe. Specifically, he knows nothing about motor sports, he is consistently arrogant and assumptive, and he is not about to let the facts get in the way of his chance to pronounce a verdict.

According to the AP's copyrighted story, "Patrick's incoming car knocked Dale Coyne Racing crewman Charles Buckman to the ground as it pulled into the pit. Buckman was taken to the hospital with a concussion and cuts to his face and scalp."

Patrick did indeed hit a pit crew worker from another team while that person was on pit road. However (and this is a big point), that crewman was in the wrong place and not paying close attention to what he was doing - he later admitted this. Patrick was in the right place, and doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing at that place and moment.

So what is she supposed to be contrite or apologetic for? Here's what she did say: "It's really, really unfortunate what happened today," Patrick said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family. Hopefully he can get back to the track soon and do what he loves." Her statement was both concise and caring. That Patrick, visibly still shaken over the incident, could manage to say even that much strikes me as both classy and appropriate. Immediately after the incident, ESPN deemed her to be non-apologetic, and I'd suspect that Gumbel simply plagiarized their analysis even though ESPN killed their own comment in its later editions. Why?

Perhaps the affiliation between ESPN and the IRL had something to do with it if you are a conspiracy maven. But the more likely reason is that the facts finally caught up with the story. The most pertinent fact being that Charles Buckman later stated that he wasn't paying attention as he should have been in a "hot-zone" pit area. Having spent considerable time in both the auto racing and air show businesses, my experience leads me to think that Buckman surely knows his fate could have been much, much worse.

The only apology due in this story is from the always snotty Gumbel for attempting to "take down" someone who is clearly a headline maker in her sport.