If you ever need another indication of how NA$CAR is run, I submit to you the end of this past weekend's race...

Sometimes, the farce just becomes so obvious that who won and who lost become basically irrelevant.

Take last weekend's NASCAR race in Phoenix.

What most YouTube clips won't show is an incident with about four laps to go in which Clint Bowyer rubs Jeff Gordon into the outside wall, popping his tire and ending what very easily could've been a good run.

This was, apparently, the last fucking straw in a season full of this shit for Gordon, who, though black-flagged because he could not be up to speed, elected to stay on the track and TAKE OUT BOWYER.  (right at the start of the clip)

Then Gordon saunters to the pit road, where he is immediately summoned to the race officials' truck.

All Hell breaks loose before he gets there.

You see, in wrecking Bowyer intentionally, Jeff Gordon eliminated Clint Bowyer from the season-long championship.  Brad Keselowski is about to win his first such championship, barring a blown engine or something like that in the last race in Homestead, FL.

But no one is going to care!

The first controversy that should've been handled (but, again, no one cared about) is that had race leader Kevin Harvick (who _did_ eventually win) taken the white flag, the race ends there.  Since they "withdrew" the white flag before he got it, apparently, for Gordon taking out Bowyer (and Joey Logano and a third car), we got one of those Green-White-Checkered finishes.

But, again, no one cared because of what happened the moment Jeff Gordon made it to the infield.

The moment Gordon gets out of the car at about 1:26, Bowyer's crew is waiting for him, and a mass brawl erupts!

At 2:18 of the clip, Clint Bowyer gets out of his car, and enacts at least a 300-yard sprint for blood.  He has to be held back by several NASCAR officials as the melee continues to be cleaned up in the garage and the race (purportedly for the material on the track, but I think, more, for the melee) was stopped!

So, basically, the brawl goes on, everybody is summoned inside, and these are the penalties:

• Instead of being thrown out of the final race at Homestead for deliberately wrecking someone out of the championship, Jeff Gordon was simply fined $100,000, docked 25 points, and is on NASCAR's "probation" for the Homestead race.  (Technically through December 31)
• Rick Hendrick, for being the owner, docked 25 owner points.
• The crew chief, Alan Gustafson, is now on probation until December 31 for failing to control Gordon.
• Brian Pattie, Bowyer's crew chief, fined $25,000 for getting into the fight and probation until December 31st.
• And Brad Keselowski fined $25,000 for carrying a cell phone (illegal under rules basically covering computers and the like), but nothing for a profane press conference slamming the media for his apparent actions in Texas while all this garbage is going on.

I have been one of the biggest critics of NASCAR's "Boys, have at it!" philosophy.

This is why.  This incident pretty much did in the 2012 championship, barring something with Keselowski this week.

But here's the doubling of the problem:   You have a deliberate take-out, a mass brawl, and NO ONE GETS THROWN OUT FOR NEXT WEEK...

If there were ever a case that it's simply 43 billboards running around the track and that the sponsors run this sport, there it is.

And now everyone is going to expect Round2 either at Homestead or 2013 Daytona...