However, if you're three sheets to the wind and your car hops a curb and flattens a baby stroller and its contents, you have deservedly some major problems. As the gangbangers say, "Sorry is a sorry word." You should be in jail for something like that.

And if Compton was drunk, he should face the music commensurate for the crime, the same deal that would await me or Jeff Burk or anyone in the grandstands.

His case does have some socially extenuating circumstances. Compton is the president of the largest auto racing sanctioning body in the world, and an arrest like this could be very embarrassing. It could ruin a career. NHRA has long wrapped itself in the sanctimonious linen of the so-called, "War On Drugs," a movement that in spirit goes

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hand-in-hand with anti-drunk driving advocates. It might (and I stress might) have a created "Dump Compton" movement within NHRA.

It might develop that Compton may have had priors or that during the drunk driving bust he was strapped with drugs. I don't know, but if factors like those were involved, his ass is very much in the pan.

Compton has face cards in his hand, though. He has presided over what looks like a financial rebound for NHRA. He's the guy who got POWERade to replace Winston. He figured in the implementation of the 75-minute rule, an edict that was initially unpopular but has proven to be a boon for the competition. I have heard more compliments on the guy's accomplishments than I have slams at some screw-up.

This is not a cover letter from Compton's defense team. When I first heard about the bust, the Eddie Munster in me wanted to send an e-mail to the NHRA Board of Directors that read simply "... But I was never busted. Chris Martin." (That in reference to the fact that when I and 18 other NHRA employees were laid off in June 1998, a mitigating factor in my release was undoubtedly my head-on approach to partying after the races.) If anyone has a reason to rattle Compton's cage, it would be me, but I won't.

Compton and his crew may not be a personality-plus crowd, (although I may have to revise that after the Aug. 13 incident) but they have played roles in developments that greatly benefited the sport. So let's try and agree on this. If this is a one-time deal, we should do some soul-searching before we okay a beheading in Glendora. Let's not go "Hollywood" and screw up the legal procedure as with the Laci Peterson, Robert Blake, and O.J. farces. If it's much worse, then it's time to let the flogging begin.

Speaking for myself, I've been drunk hundreds of times in a car. I'm not bragging, just saying it like it was. In some of those instances, I was behind the wheel, so I'm gonna reserve judgment. The way I see it now, and even if he's guilty, the only thing that separates me from Tom Compton is that he got caught and I didn't. And I suspect that applies to some of you, and I'll just bet some of the NHRA folks.

Let's be careful out there.

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