Take a look at the headlines halfway through this season and you might get a little apprehensive. But fret not: NASCAR is as solidly grounded and in control now as ever before.

With fans up in arms over recent departures from tradition, and teams going out of their heads over recent yellow-flag controversies, things really couldn't be better for big-time stock-car racing.

Race tracks steeped with tradition continue to lose race dates; heck, even race dates steeped with tradition have been plucked and planted in unthought of locations. The sanctioning body has made some bad scoring calls and the yellow-flag racing situation has become an issue. And then there's the biggest change of all: Everybody start practicing now and maybe, five years from now, it won't sound so strange ... The NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.

But take a deep breath. The sport is fine. It's dealt with change and controversy before and has become the fastest growing sport in the country. So you can be sure that the safe bet is that decades from now two race dates -- including Labor Day -- at California Speedway won't feel weird, saying NASCAR Nextel Cup won't sound strange, and touring North Carolina only four times a year won't seem so wrong.

NASCAR has constantly been marked by change, and that change has produced what is now one of the most exciting sports in the world.

	“	There may be an issue, but it dies down. And while it's still in the news, it just makes more people pay attention to NASCAR. It only helps to draw more fans, so we shouldn't worry about it. Maybe we should welcome it, a little. ”
		— Rusty Wallace

"In the years to come, without opposition from another strong form of motorsports, the sport could become more of a global affair," Chevy driver Derrike Cope said. "But if that comes about and the sport continues to grow, the changes change. In other words, what you expect and what seems likely doesn't always happen. The more you grow, the more you change. And change creates more change, and a lot of times unexpected change."

But delivering the unexpected is what has gotten NASCAR to its perch as the No. 1 form of motorsports in the United States.

"I think the sport is going to change, but I don't think it has the room to move like it has in the past 10 years," driver John Andretti said. "It's going to continue to move forward, and everyone's goal in motorsports is for the sport to build on the positive things that we have built on in the past. Every 10 years it has taken tremendous steps forward, but I think we are reaching a point where, over the next 10 years, it is going to be harder to move forward.

"I think the past 10 years have been the biggest decade that has happened to motorsports. I'm like everyone else. I would love to see that continue. That would for sure make it the No. 1 sport in the world. I think that's how much we've moved in the last 10 years."

Change, though it has felt at times bizarre, has been the catalyst for NASCAR's tremendous growth -- and change now will be its key to survival. So don't fret.

And as for controversy -- well, that's never been anything but good. More than any other entity NASCAR has cashed in on the belief that any news is good news. Publicity in any form -- especially the addictive form of controversy -- is a plus for the NASCAR.

From the infamous fight at the end of the first flag-to-flag televised Daytona 500 to the death of Dale Earnhardt, controversy has helped draw new fans to the drama of racing.

So will this year's debates.

Three times this season, a driver racing and passing another on the way back to the start/finish after a caution came out has become an issue. In one incident, Jeff Gordon passed Matt Kenseth because leader Kenseth was giving laps back to more drivers than Gordon liked. In another, Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed Gordon trying to avoid a wreck. In both of those incidents, the man who passed gave that spot back up later.

Then there was the inflammatory incident in the last Cup race when Robby Gordon passed teammate Kevin Harvick under caution and got the track position that helped him win the race.

That incident more than any other got the entire series questioning whether the gentleman's agreement that states a driver won't race another back to the start/finish under a routine caution should go out the window.

But the racers aren't worried about a little rift. Especially the veterans, who have been through them before and seen the sport come out looking even more exciting and enticing to fans.

"You can't get carried away with it," driver Rusty Wallace said. "There may be an issue, but it dies down. And while it's still in the news, it just makes more people pay attention to NASCAR. It only helps to draw more fans, so we shouldn't worry about it. Maybe we should welcome it, a little."

In the end, I believe Wallace is right.

I mean, NASCAR has achieved the parity it has always craved with 13 different winners in the first 17 races. It has names like Gordon and Earnhardt in the top three of the points race. And it has a new $700 million sponsor in Nextel that is positioned to cater to a relatively untapped youth audience that tobacco company R.J. Reynolds could not go after with its Winston brand.

Sure, it's going to feel different at first only visiting Rockingham, N.C., once. And it'll be peculiar going to Cali for Labor Day and Darlington in November, but only for a little while. Drivers will be subjected to question after question and offer solution after solution about the yellow-flag passing rules. But only for the next few weeks.

Change and controversy come and go. Both have fueled NASCAR from its start, and both will help it grow now. So instead of worrying that they've come in heaping portions so far in 2003, take heart in the fact that they are healthy signs for the sport and an indication that everything's headed in the right direction.

Rupen Fofaria covers NASCAR for The Raleigh News & Observer and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at rfofaria@espnspecial.com.