Chris, great post! While I don't know John Memmer and wasn't at the race, reading through this thread I was a little surprised that it took until Mike Padfield's post for anyone to even bring up the fact that John may have hurt himself more than anyone with his actions. That certainly was the opinion I was drawing out of everything I was reading. All young racers aspirer to move to the next level, John's actions on and off the race track will prevent that from happening for him more than anything in my opinion.

This thread is the second thread recently talking about police having to be called to a race track to break up pit altercations after events on the race track. Friday I witnessed something on pit road at Richmond that took me back to Winchester years ago. In the Winchester event Gene Lee Gibson was invovled in a supermodified accident with Pat Abold, Gene Lee climbed from his car and started pounding Pat in the helmet while he was strapped in the cockpit of his car. Gene Lee's actions were televised on national TV, it has always been my personal opinion that moment of frustration ruined Gene Lee's chances of ever advancing his career. Friday while standing on pit road during SC practice I heard all of these obscenities coming from a pit to the right of me. When I turned my head to see what was happening I witnessed a pit crew member reaching into the cockpit pounding his driver in the helmet. Witnessing that was like relieving the Winchester incident all over again for me. I had never seen this SC team race before and no names need be mentioned. My point of bringing this up is that John Memmer's actions were video taped and have been widely discussed on here, John has probably done more harm to his own career than any punishment than can be handed out.

That being said, I do feel John should be suspended for trying to hit the official. An anger management class may also be in John' s best interest.

As I said I do not know John or his family, so I will not add to the name calling that has taken place on here. From what I have read on here I do feel John's actions were directed towards the scorers more than the fans. I may be in the minority here but I feel John did more damage to himself and his racing career than anyone sitting in the stands.

Racers go through allot of highs and lows in the sport, I am not condoning what John did, nor do I feel he should be given a free pass because of his age. Several posters have compared John's actions to other acts of frustration shown by drivers before him. Maybe just maybe before we rehash what John did anymore we should take this thread in another direction an explore what can be done to prevent further outburst from drivers young and old in the future. Only one poster had the foresight to mention that radios could have prevented this incident, certainly if John had voiced his displeasure over the radio the impressionable young children in ths stands would have had no idea there was a problem.

Witnessing what I did in Richmond this weekend left me asking myself allot of questions, here are just a few of them. Are racers showing their frustrations more now than the generations of racers before them? The cost of racing has certainly increased over the years, how does the cost of racing play into current day racers frustrations? Is there too much pressure being put on todays young racers to advance to the big leagues? With todays racers loosing sponsorship money right and left what additional pressures are placed on the race team?

Patti