Martin was the actor who played the boss man in the 1960s prison movie "Cool Hand Luke."

After brutally beating Luke in front of the other prisoners, Martin delivered one of the most famous speeches in movie history.

"What we have here is failure to communicate," Martin declared. "I don't like it any more than you men."

At Talladega last month, Hunter addressed the media after watching Winston Cup drivers take another brutal beating from restrictor-plate racing.

"We don't like this any more than our drivers do," Hunter promised.

He went on to state emphatically that changes would be made to help the drivers before the next restrictor-plate race in February at the Daytona 500.

Of course, drivers have complained for years about the high-speed, skin-tight quarters of plate racing. And for years NASCAR officials have nodded their heads and agreed that there is a problem, then done nothing about it.

The dilemma is simple. What we have here is failure to accelerate.

Pure racing skill has been taken out of the drivers' hands at Talladega and Daytona. Basically, all they do these days is mash the accelerate to the floor and hold on, trying desperately to avoid the big wreck that seemingly is inevitable in such pack racing.

Nearly every car has the same power, so they all go the same speed. The only way to pass is with some help. The race becomes little more than a guessing game, with a dash of Russian roulette thrown in for good measure.

The drivers absolutely hate it. Their displeasure has reached the point that few of them do any serious racing until the final 30 laps or so of the 188-lap event. The rest of the race is little more than a 190-mph parade lap.

NASCAR insists it is ready to listen seriously to ideas for ways to change plate racing and make it safer for the drivers. A meeting involving drivers, crew chiefs, car owners and NASCAR officials was held Thursday at owner Joe Gibbs' race shop in Huntersville, N.C., to discuss ideas for improving the aerodynamic package at the two tracks next year.

NASCAR spokesperson Danielle Humphrey described the meeting as being a "brain-storming" session.

The question is, what can be done? This has been an issue facing NASCAR for nearly 15 years, ever since Bobby Allison's car almost went into the grandstands at Talladega in 1987, prompting a reduction of the speeds that had reached 212 mph.

NASCAR never has been able to find a solution that suited the drivers and kept the speeds in check. Why should we believe that all of a sudden they can come up with an answer in the next three months?

The only solution I can see is to loosen up the restrictions and let the cars go faster. Not up to the 220 or 225 that the cars probably could run these days if the plates were removed entirely. But there is no reason why the speeds cannot sneak back up into the 205 range.

That 15 mph increase would be enough to create some space between the cars. And with improved aerodynamic handling and such recent inventions as roof flaps, the cars should stay close to the ground in a wreck, even at the higher speeds.

What that might do, however, is remove the frenetic finishes that have become commonplace at Talladega and Daytona. As much as the drivers hated it, the final 30 laps of the EA Sports 500 was amazing, some of the most exciting racing I ever have seen.

So one wonders, deep down, whether NASCAR truly wants to make any changes.

One wonders if there is not another part of Martin's speech that also fits this situation.

"Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it."