When Kevin Harvick cruised to victory at Texas Motor Speedway in November and qualified for the championship race, his celebration was different from that in every other previous Cup Series race at the Fort Worth track since 2005.
He did it without firing blanks in a pair of six-shooter revolvers – a longtime tradition at the 1.5-mile oval.
Hours before Harvick took the checkered flag, a gunman shot and killed 26 people and wounded several others at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas – about 300 miles away from TMS. So track president Eddie Gossage made the call to remove the revolvers from that day’s celebration “out of respect for this horrible thing occurring sort of in our backyard.”
“I don’t want anybody to misconstrue what we’re doing here – it’s all in fun, it’s all a celebration,” Gossage told For The Win.
“Had that incident occurred somewhere else not in our backyard, I don’t know that it would have crossed my mind. I wouldn’t have felt that it was any less of a tragedy if it had occurred in name the state, name the city. But this was in our backyard, so no reason to fan the flame and cause people to raise questions.”
The decision to withhold the six shooters from Harvick’s celebration was “a very specific scenario” only for that race, Gossage added.
And in contrast with multiple major companies recently distancing themselves from firearms and the National Rifle Association, Gossage said he has no intention of changing or ending that tradition moving forward. It will resume with the NASCAR Cup Series’ O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 on Sunday. Same goes for the shotgun presented to the Cup Series pole winner in qualifying rounds at the track.
Harvick after winning the pole in April 2017. (Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)
Gossage said he doesn’t see keeping firearms intertwined with NASCAR’s races at TMS it as a political statement. Rather, he said the track is embracing stereotypes of the state of Texas by having the race winner celebrate with a cowboy hat and six shooters – an outdated type of gun associated with Western movies and John Wayne. The idea behind it is that people who see photos or videos of the race winner will instantly be able to identify which track it’s from.
Every Cup Series race winner at TMS has celebrated with six shooters since 2005, with the exception of Harvick in November, according to the track. The six shooters are sponsored by Smith & Wesson, while Henry Repeating Arms sponsors the pole winner’s shotgun.
With the constantly polarizing issues around guns in the U.S. – which have remained in the headlines following the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where 17 people were killed and the March For Our Lives rallies in response – not everyone sees this NASCAR race’s celebration with guns as harmless, even if the drivers are firing blanks.
Josh Sugarmann – who, in 1988, founded the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit that works to end gun-related deaths and injuries by researching gun violence as a public health issue – said it doesn’t matter that six shooters are meant to represent Western stereotypes.
“Anything that tries to normalize guns in public spaces is counterproductive,” Sugarmann said.
“What is revealing is that in the wake of Sutherland Springs, they recognized that that was inappropriate. And I think if you accept that and take a step back, it calls into question ceremonies like that – that celebrate firearms and at a time when there’s a growing awareness of the role that firearms play in U.S. society.”
Kyle Busch won the NRA 500 in 2013. (Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)
The NRA sponsored one Cup Series race at TMS – the NRA 500 in April of 2013 – a controversial partnership that materialized months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012 where 20 students and six adults were killed. The NRA is now a co-sponsor of the second Bristol Motor Speedway race on the calendar – the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race in August at the Tennessee short track.
Both TMS and Bristol are among the several NASCAR tracks owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc.
The NRA did not return messages seeking comment.
Gossage – who said he owns a firearm but declined to be more specific – likened drivers celebrating with six shooters and shotguns to the Patriots’ End Zone Militia. Men dressed in Revolutionary War costumes fire muskets after New England touchdowns at Gillette Stadium.
Like the militiamen, Gossage said the six shooters similarly represent a stereotype of the state and are an obvious celebration rather than a political statement.
Sugarmann, however, said the difference between the two celebrations is the fact that the End Zone Militia men are in costume and firing weapons clearly centuries out of date. But he also suggested perhaps it’s time for the Patriots to evaluate whether it’s still “appropriate to have a celebration that involves firearms in a public space.”
Cup Series race and pole winners at TMS do receive the six shooters and shotguns as trophies, but Gossage said they get them at a later date after going through proper legal channels, depending in which state the winners live.
“The NRA is our core fan base, and we all have guns, and all us racers love to go out and shoot. It’s part of who we are,” driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. said in 2013 ahead of the NRA 500 at TMS. “Anytime you have a sponsor that embraces their market and who their core customers are, it’s great for us.”
[jwplayer vKgwil47-t2dCqACG]
