Nascar warns broadcasters about excessive criticism

With just two races to go in Nascar's Chase for the Sprint Cup, the motor series' senior executives have issued a clarion call to their broadcast partners.

In a rare move, Nascar chief executive Brian France rebuked Nascar's broadcasters for their excessive criticism in recent races, urging commentators to be as fair as they would with any other sport. "We welcome criticism on calls that are made, strategy, policy; that goes with the territory," said France. "What we'll ask the commentators to do, they're professionals, and to look at how other professional commentators call other sports."

France's comments come on the back of high-profile online criticism from his director of corporate communicatons, Ramsey Poston. Poston had rebuked ABC for repeatedly declaring the Sprint Cup race at Talladega to be boring.

"Clearly, this is a sport that has a lot of opinions," France said. "Most other sports channel their thoughts and criticisms differently. That is an unusual thing that we have, to have people within the sport openly just criticising [Nascar] as we go along, but maybe that's something very unique in Nascar that no other sport has to sort out. We'll sort it out."

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Jimmie Johnson, aiming for a fourth consecutive title, leads Mark Martin by 73 points in the Chase for the Cup standings. Popular Colombian driver Juan Pablo Montoya is 236 points off the lead in sixth.

France did concede that he would have preferred a more exciting finish, saying, "no question that we would prefer to have it come down like it did the first year where more than one driver and certainly three or four would really have a shot going down the stretch. [But] the Super Bowl doesn't always get the two best teams. It doesn't always get the last-minute finish of who is going to win."

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