The shorter the track, the shorter the tempers.

It certainly seems, at least, that short-track racing has brought out the worst in Winston Cup drivers in 2002.

Robby Gordon is on probation until Aug. 28 for ramming Dale Earnhardt Jr. on pit road following the race at Bristol in March. Jimmy Spencer promised payback to Kurt Busch after Busch muscled his car past Spencer’s and went on to win that race.

And, of course, Kevin Harvick didn’t even get to race at Martinsville after being put on probation for incidents during and after the Grand National race at Bristol with Greg Biffle and then, in NASCAR’s view, violating that probation with his behavior in a Truck series race at Martinsville.

By parking Harvick during that Saturday Truck race and then extending the sanction so he had to sit out of the Virginia 500 the following day, NASCAR seems to have sent a message. While a certain amount of sheet-metal contact is inevitable in short-track racing, there are limits to NASCAR’s tolerance.

“They’re going to make contact, and the drivers, some of them, their tempers just get the best of them at the spur of the moment,” former Winston Cup champion Ned Jarrett said of short-track racing. “It has always been that way since they put the first cars on the race track. People run into each other and then they get mad at each other.”

Jarrett said one problem is that today’s drivers sometimes don’t do a good job of administering payback.

“Even back then it was not smart to get even right then, to get payback on the next lap,” Jarrett said. “Wrecking somebody, you don’t do it that day. You waited. Today, the trouble some of these guys are getting into is they think they have to repay somebody right then. They’re not patient enough, and haven’t become smart enough yet.

“The good drivers wait for the right time. There’s a lot of ways you can get payback without wrecking somebody, without hitting them and getting yourself in trouble.”

Jarrett also said that 30 years ago there weren’t television cameras showing replays from every angle of every incident on the track. Current car owner Ray Evernham agrees that makes a difference.

“It’s the same old stuff going on,” Evernham said. “But now, with so much money involved in the sport and everything being so important, we probably need to keep it in check a little better. The sport has grown to this level (and) whether anybody wanted it to or not, it’s here. If we want to keep it at this level, we probably can’t do all that slam-banging that we used to do.”

Still, drivers are human and their tempers and emotions will always be a factor.

Jeff Gordon showed that last year in the season’s final race at New Hampshire, going around the track and ramming Robby Gordon’s car after he felt Robby Gordon had roughed him up going for the lead late in that race.

“There are guys I put into certain categories where I know how I am going to race those guys and I know how they’re going to race me,” Jeff Gordon said. “There are guys who are extremely clean, guys you can trust more so than others. And there are some guys who maybe aren’t always in full control, but they’re getting the most out of it.

“Then there are guys who just hit you about every chance they get. I recognize that when I come up on them, and I just know who they are. I put those guys in categories when I approach that car, and I expect certain things back from them. If I get treated a certain way, I am going to treat them back the same way.”

Harvick would contend he was doing just that when he retaliated against Biffle in the Bristol Grand National race and Coy Gibbs in the Martinsville Truck race. It falls to NASCAR officials to decide what’s fair and what’s beyond the limit.

“It’s a very subjective situation, and by no means do we want to sterilize our competition,” said Jim Hunter, NASCAR vice president for communications. “Every one of these instances, there has to be a call. … As for the drivers, you have to be able to manage your temper, your emotions when you’re on that race track.”

Jeff Gordon agrees.

“We’re all intense out there and want to win, and none of us wants to get pushed around,” he said. “But I think we all need to know what our limits are.”