This year's Knoxville Nationals were about as bizarre as I can remember. The week started off on a tragic note with the death of Steve King, which was surrounded by confusion when reports of his death surfaced early on Thursday, only to be refuted later. The announcement of Steve's death was finally confirmed by family members on Thursday afternoon, but the way the situation played out made the tragedy even more upsetting. All of our thoughts and prayers are with the King family.

Fast forward to Saturday night's activities which needless to say didn't put the sport in the best light. I'm a big fan of winged sprint car racing, but it's a sport that doesn't lend itself easily to live television. Stops, starts, red flags, push trucks, track watering - not exactly an edge of your seat telecast. In person a great show - live TV, not so much is how I sum it up.

The Danny Lasoski mess and subsequent theatrics worthy of the Jerry Springer Show was another black eye for the weekend. My view of what happened on track was that Lasoski at the very least should have been sent to the rear of the field after making contact with Kerry Madsen. As for the Brian Brown-Lasoski family feud that followed, I think those pictures speak for themselves.

But the family confrontation that took place afterward on national television was inexcusable. Think it didn't hurt the sport and further the trailer trash mentality stereotype many mainstream race fans and sports fans associate with sprint car racing? At least here in my homebase of Chicago, Lasoski's outburst made several of the local sportscasts with some not-too-polite snorts and giggles about the incident as follow-up.

Finally having all the best drivers and teams together for the Nationals - which we realize is a non-sanctionied event thank-you very much - shows how ridiculous the split between the WoO and NST is. Getting back together is essential for winged sprint car racing's future. Cleaning up its act a little is also probably not a bad idea.