Is driving a race car an individual endeavor, or is it a team sport? Or has it morphed itself from a solo deal to gang warfare?
There was a time when, before the advent of three-, four- and even five-car teams in NASCAR, the IRL and other forms of motorsport, it was  strictly every driver for himself and let the devil take the hindmost.
Recent years have seen Roush, Hendrick, Childress, Ganassi, Penske and others take over the upper echelon of NASCAR. With it, presumably, came the ideas of cooperation, team drafting, pooled information, helping a teammate, even blocking when necessary.
To the casual, and not-so-casual, observer, that concept has changed.
Take the recent Pepsi 400 Nextel Cup race at Daytona. Kyle Busch, one of four Hendrick Racing teammates in the top 10 as the race entered its final laps, needed a little drafting help to challenge eventual winner Jamie McMurray.
None was forthcoming and Busch, a “lame duck” driver for Hendrick for the rest of the season, was loud in his protest that his teammates left him in his moment of need, had quit including him in team discussions. Jimmie Johnson, who also drives for Rick Hendrick,  expressed surprise at Chicagoland that Busch was critical.
“From the Hendrick side, we haven’t done anything to push him out or eliminate him from team meetings,”  Johnson said. “I thought we worked well together through the race, and I thought our teammate situation was working really good through our debriefs and events.”
 Johnson did admit that he thought the teammate concept went out the window on the final lap.
“I think it all boils down to, in the heat of the moment you race people the way they race you,” Johnson said.
From Ray Evernham’s Dodge Dealers/UAW team, Elliott Sadler saw the increased pressure from The Chase point system as a contributing factor.
“With the pressure comes attitude and frustration and all those things,” he said. “It can take you through the wringer and a lot of different emotions on any given weekend. Kyle probably feels like he is on an island over there by himself.”
`For McMurray, who won at Daytona, it was more of a philosophical view.
“Typically, every time you leave a speedway you’re usually disappointed with somebody because they didn’t help you, or they did what was best for themselves,” he said.
But Mark Martin, in the twilight of his racing days, thinks it’s basically much ado about a misinterpreted definition. He isn’t so sure teammates can exist in NASCAR.
“Your teammates aren’t your teammates really, because if they were, they would only be on the track to make sure you won,” he said.
Are we headed back to everyone for himself?
Another, more extreme, application of what drivers for the same car owner ought not to do was also on display at Daytona.
Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin, both of whom drive for Joe Gibbs Racing, crashed together early in the Daytona race. The pair openly criticized one another for the accident. The incident dominated much of the pre-race hype leading into the weekend at Chicagoland.
When it was over, the drivers appeared to be back on the same page.
All of the Chicagoland discussion, it is fair to assume, will be moot the next time two cars from the same stable come together, or one team driver doesn’t give a fellow driver from the same shop a tow in a critical moment.
Maybe it’s time to take the gloves off and let the drivers have at it. Maybe it will stir the fans up to the point that they will quit harping on the Car of Tomorrow and how it is ruining NASCAR.