Pride the driving force for those not running for title

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- NASCAR showcased its link to the past Thursday afternoon, bringing many of its champions together to preview this weekend's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. And looking there at Richard Petty sitting next to and swapping stories with Bobby Allison, Rusty Wallace, Darrell Waltrip and more recent stars like Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte, it wasn't much of a stretch to think fondly on NASCAR's "good old days."

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Remember back when drivers raced because they loved it, not because they made money at it?

Of course, that assumes that today's drivers are only interested in making sponsors happy, making the Chase, making money and making it to the Waldorf-Astoria for the award ceremony. And nothing could be further from the truth.

Guess what? Today's stars are just as driven to beat the next guy as Allison wanted to beat Petty in the '70s, Wallace wanted to beat Waltrip in the '80s, and Jarrett and Labonte duking it out in the '90s. And it doesn't take a big trophy and a big paycheck to fuel that desire.

Sure, getting a chance to get on the stage in New York next month and receive a big check is a motivating factor, but it's not even close to the real reason why the drivers not named Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards still show up at places like Homestead in mid-November, at the end of another grueling season that wears on everyone in the garage area.

"It boils down to pride," Jeff Burton said when asked what motivates him at this point in the season. "What are you going to do? Are you going to lay down and cry about it, or are you going to go to work and bust your ass and try to be better. And that's the course we're going to take.

"What we have to do is we have to refocus, to not dwell on the fact that we're not championship caliber any more. So my mindset is to prove to myself, for my team to prove to themselves and to each other that we can regroup in the face of disappointment and focus on the positives."

For Clint Bowyer, it's a matter of resetting priorities -- and keeping goals in place.

"You've got to set your goals as high as possible," Bowyer said. "Your first goal is wanting to win a race. Second goal is to win a championship. If you can't win a championship, you want to finish second. If you can't finish second, you want to be third. That's where the goals are.

"Right now, I can't win the championship but I can be in the top five in points and that's not bad. That's the goal this weekend."

Without hesitation, Kevin Harvick said it's easy to stay motivated despite not having a championship to chase.

"There's 43 of us who get to do this every week," Harvick said. "We're very lucky and fortunate to be a part of this sport, to do what we love to do every weekend. Unfortunately, every week there's only one winner. We all want to win, we all want to get better and right now the main goal is to go out and run as fast as you can every week and try to be competitive enough to win the race."

When Jeff Gordon is behind the wheel, the fame and fortune takes a back seat to beating the competition.

"When you're sitting here on Sunday and it's all over and you finish second, at that moment you don't care that you're second or 12th," Gordon said. "But when you go pick up the check in December at the banquet, there's a big difference between second and 12th.

"When you're second, like we where last season, it still is a great year. We were very close to the championship and there was a lot of pride in that, even though we didn't win it. I felt like we really took a lot from that."

Birds gotta fly. Fish gotta swim. Racers gotta race. It's as simple as that. Carly Simon had it right. These are the good old days.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer