Tracy and Tobacco
7/17/2003

Paul Tracy won the Molson Indy Toronto for the second time on the weekend, and in his wire to wire victory you saw as dominating a performance as you’ll ever witness on any race track.

There is extra motivation in the entire Players camp as we push through the second half Champ Car World Series. Beginning in October, Federal regulations will force Players to drop out of Racing Sponsorship after forty two years of support with teams, events and the driver development program.

A couple of months ago I made a couple of comments about one of Todd Lewis's early racing columns for TSN (you can find said comments back in the archive somewhere). At the time, I was mortally unimpressed with Mr. Lewis, but still willing to cut him some slack. However, that slack is rapidly being used up, as he's once again gone and written a totally moronic column about CART racing. He starts off well enough, going on about Tracy's win at Toronto, and his comments, if obvious, at least reflect reality. Then, however...

This leads to the topic of the forced withdrawal of sponsorship by Players.

And now we're in deep deep waters. I haven't actually scribed any mighty words of wisdom in these pages about the demise of Players racing because I'm still of two minds about it myself. Mr. Lewis, however, bravely steps up to the plate, and actually does pretty well, although once again he's not saying anything new. And then, all of a sudden, it all goes to shit...

So why will you not be allowed to promote a particular brand of smokes, when that’s all you’ve been able to do for years, yet you can hand out condoms by the box load as a way of promoting your product?

What? What? Do you think it might be related to the fact that condoms save lives, while cigarettes tend to take them? Maybe just? Oi...

Cigarettes and sex are both sensitive subjects, especially for young people. Huffing and puffing through either can be hazardous to your health, not to mention life-altering. Yet there are not the same regulatory restrictions for condoms as there are cigarettes. Why not?

I realize that condoms can help prevent disease and illness, but to make use of the product you still have to indulge in the potentially hazardous act. Using a condom does not eliminate all risks involved, there will still be some that contract disease or begin a pregnancy. And there will always be a segment of the population that chooses to indulge, regardless of any amount of abstinence advertising.

And on that surreal note... Why the bizarre rant about condoms? I mean, the last few paragraphs of this column make NO sense at all. We go from a stupid, and god-I-hope rhetorical, question (asked twice) to some bizarre conflation of cigarettes and condoms, accompanied by a descent into grammar Hell (Yes, I know who's talking). Was Lewis drinking while he worked on this column? Anyway, strike two against TSN's racing columnist.