Cool Heads and NASCAR Prevail Under Beaty

It’s 6 a.m. and the eyes of Pocono International Raceway are beginning to open.

Like most everything else on NASCAR’s top stock-car racing circuit, it doesn’t happen without Dick Beaty watching.

Before cars even come out of the garages, Beaty takes his own lap around the 2 1/2-mile track -- on foot. Besides getting some refreshing morning exercise, he checks for debris on the hourlong walk.

At 67, Beaty is in his 12th season as NASCAR’s Winston Cup director, rising through the NASCAR ranks from a part-time inspector job in 1958 after competing in motorcycle and stock-car racing.

Mention his name to drivers and crew chiefs, and a consistent image emerges of a man who is even-handed, thorough and cares about the sport and its competitors. To longtime NASCAR crew chief Harry Hyde, Beaty is a “super policeman.”

“Outside of the Frances, he is NASCAR,” said Hyde, referring to the family of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and president Bill France Jr.

“He knows how to give a warning,” Hyde said. “He knows how to talk to you. ... And he’s down the line. He treats everybody alike.

“All of us get out of line once in a while because we all crowd the rule book.”

In the sea of tractor-trailers and racing tires where that crowding goes on, the deafening rumble from the garage stalls doesn’t diminish the presence of the small man wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap on his tanned head.

If Richard Petty is the king and Dale Earnhardt the champion around here, Dick Beaty is the boss. It’s a responsibility neither he nor the people he watches takes lightly. The world of NASCAR is fast, intense, competitive and dangerous, and nobody knows it more than Beaty.

“A successful race is for me to come to a facility, have no problems during inspection, have no problems during the race, and foremost, No. 1, it’s safe,” Beaty said.

OK, maybe he’s asking for a lot. But if he doesn’t get it, he’ll do what he can about it, and he does have a few tools. Amazing, sometimes, what a black flag can do. Drivers don’t like to sit in the pits with cars -- and dollar signs -- whizzing by.

“There are certain decisions you don’t really like to make, but you have to make ‘em,” Beaty said. “When it’s your responsibility to do it, you must do it. ...

“We had to park a few guys. I really didn’t like to do that, but I had to get their attention.”

He’s gotten the attention of Harry Hyde and many others as the sport has grown. Hyde said every time, he can only smile about it.

“Decisions become tougher and tougher, and more of ‘em,” Hyde said. “He’s got to do it. If you let up on this sport just a little bit it would go haywire overnight.”

In a year that’s had its share of controversy, Beaty’s steady hand is welcomed by drivers.

“Beaty understands that everyone’s not perfect,” said 1989 NASCAR champion Rusty Wallace, who’s gotten black-flag warnings for jumping restarts. “He enforces the rules, too.

“Beaty’s not a sporadic, instantaneous type of leader. Beaty’s got a real level head on his shoulders.”

The first big storm this year came with pit-road rules enacted for safety after a crewman was killed; they have evolved over the season to meet with more acceptance, but Beaty cracks down on speeding on pit road.

Another dispute erupted June 9 at Sonoma, Calif., when Davey Allison was awarded the victory over Ricky Rudd, who bumped and passed leader Allison just before the start of the last lap. Beaty didn’t make the call; he was absent because of a death in the family, so another official handled it.

“I don’t think we would have had as much controversy (at Sonoma) if Dick Beaty would have been at the racetrack,” Wallace said.

As he toured the Pocono asphalt with the sun breaking over the trees, Beaty considered the previous race. “I certainly wouldn’t second-guess anyone,” he said. But right or wrong, he knew that the next day, race day, he would have to address the feelings created by the Sonoma decision.

“I had a meeting this week with several drivers and crew chiefs and I’ll tell you, what happened last week is over with,” he told drivers at the pre-race meeting. “Some tempers flared. But let me assure you that I will not tolerate that and I will take care of anything that happens.”

There were no questions.

“In the garage area, it’s like a big family. You and your wife don’t get along all the time,” Beaty said as he walked the track. “All my friends are inside that garage fence.

“Safety’s foremost. ... When one of the guys becomes injured, it worries us.”

To the guys at the track, those aren’t empty words. Richard Childress, owner of Earnhardt’s car and a former driver himself, motioned to a car and ticked off improvements in the equipment: window nets, an extra roll bar, better seats and leg supports.

“He’s always trying to better the safety of the race car for drivers,” Childress said. “The cars are a lot safer today than they were even 10 years ago, and you can see it by a lot of the crashes we’ve had and the driver walks away.”

Every wreck means an inspection by Beaty and his people to see if any changes in the cars could prevent it or make it more safe -- “Do we need to add a bar here?”

“That’s how we came up with the cars we have today,” he said.

It also inspires changes at tracks. Pocono chairman Dr. Joseph Mattioli said Beaty lets him know things he’d like to see. Sometimes the concern is immediate -- as it was last year about debris thrown onto the track by cars going onto the grass in turns 1 and 3 of the three-turn course. Presto, rumble strips were in place for the second race. Mattioli had to hustle to get it done between the June and July races, but suddenly, cut tires weren’t such a problem.

“He said, ‘I know that if it can be done, you’ll do it,’ ” Mattioli recalled. “From the second race last year and the first race this year, there’s not been one stone onto that track that anybody’s complained about.”

Beaty walks the same tightrope of any referee: making sure the rules are followed while guarding against favoritism. He spends time with competitors when needed and encourages them to come to the control tower to see what goes on if they are out of a race early. And he’s a tough judge of himself.

“If I make a bad call -- and we’re human, we make bad calls -- as soon as the race is over, I go down and look the man in the eye and say, ‘Hey, I screwed up.”’

Competitors know Beaty will listen to them, as well, even if he’s rushed with his own duties.

“That’s something we weren’t able to draw on before Dick Beaty came along,” Hyde said.

“He’s tried to leave open communications between the sanctioning body and drivers and owners and teams,” driver Mark Martin said. “He helped to make it much more of a family-type organization.

“He tries real hard to do the right thing.”