IN PAST, RIVALRIES COULD FLOURISH.

Byline: TIM HADDOCK Motor Sports

As rivalries go, none can get better than the one between Kurt Busch and Jimmy Spencer.

Dodgers-Giants. Wake me in September, when the Giants are fighting their way out of the first round of the playoffs and the Dodgers are making tee times in Vero Beach.

Lakers-Celtics. At last check, the Lakers will be without their best player, Kobe Bryant, whose body might be in uniform once the season starts, but his mind will be in court wondering how long four years in a Colorado prison might really feel like. And the Celtics - it's been a long time since Larry Bird and 1986.

Trojans-Bruins. The last time this football game mattered, Marcus Allen was coveted by Raiders owner Al Davis and Troy Aikman was going to be the best Oklahoma quarterback ever.

The clash between Busch and Spencer has brought out the fire and ire of fans. T-shirts printed with ``Free Jimmy'' slogans were scattered throughout Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. Busch won the Sharpie 500 to a chorus of boos from fans who have chosen to make Busch the symbol of juvenile delinquency. Smoking his tires is about as bad as smoking in the high school bathroom. Peeling out across the finish line would be about as smart as peeling out in front of his girlfriend's parents.

Kurt Busch can't win, even when he does.

Jimmy Spencer can't lose, even though he will.

It really comes down to a matter of respect. The young drivers don't want it and don't know how to get it.

The old dogs don't want to teach them how to earn it.

Bill Elliott and Rusty Wallace, two veteran drivers who can remember a time when every driver's move on and off the track wasn't recorded by Fox, NBC or ESPN, openly wondered whether this brand of stock-car racing is any better than the one they knew. Furthermore, they wondered whether the brand of race-car driver now developing can capture the imagination of fans the way Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Tim Richmond and David Pearson once did.

``The thing about it is, so many things have changed since Rusty or myself or even Earnhardt was around,'' Elliott said. ``Back in those days, you weren't under such a magnifying glass. I can remember when Darrell and Cale (Yarborough) got into a little altercation after Michigan. I think it was either in the late '70s or early '80s. It was on TV.

``The thing of it is, everybody gets put under a lot of pressure these days. NASCAR is the controlling factor of what kinda goes on. I don't think in today's world, I don't think it can tolerate anything that goes on like what happened between Spencer and Busch.''

But there used to be a time when NASCAR could tolerate quick-tempered drivers and high emotions on the race track. Wallace remembers those days.

``I remember sitting there in Charlotte one day when Tim Richmond jumped out of the car and ran over to David Pearson, and David Pearson and him bumped each other,'' Wallace said. ``Richmond called him a screwed-up old man. Pearson jumped up and smacked him in the face.

``Nowadays, they got the cops involved and they got fines and, oh my God, it's crazy. You cuss, you get kicked out. You cuss, you get fined. You got a cleaned-up, sterile sport nowadays. Do I like it that way? Hell no. I don't like it that way. But that's the way you gotta do things nowadays.''

It might have gotten to the point where NASCAR has outgrown its charm. It has been billed as the next all-American sport, with squeaky-clean American drivers, driving American cars and racing in American cities. But in reality, it has become a corporate machine that detests controversy and conflict. In a way, NASCAR was the last frontier in sport, where heroes and villains settled their differences on a race track.

``How can you have a villain the way the sport is perceived today?'' Elliott asked rhetorically. ``This ain't the Western days. This ain't Saturday night dirt-track racing. Even it has respect. You can't go out and hit people and things like that. There's too many eyes watching what goes on every day.''

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