Last week, Brad Keselowski tweeted, “Needed a good laugh tonight after being ruled ineligible for both shootout and NW championship in one loooong week. Thanks for the support.” This began speculation that drivers would have to choose the series that they wanted to compete in for 2011.
Since then, this has been confirmed to be true as reported on NASCAR.com.
Kenny Wallace said that there is a box you have to check on the new entry form that he picked up while testing at Daytona for the upcoming 24 hours of Daytona race.
“The brand-new license forms that are out, there’s a box and in it, it states that you have to mark — put an X — what championship you’re running for,” Wallace told NASCAR.com, quoting his application. “A driver will only be permitted to earn driver championship points in one (1) of the following three series: NASCAR Sprint Cup, NASCAR Nationwide or NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Please select the series in which you would like to accumulate driver championship points. Choose one.”
NASCAR refused to comment on the issue as they said it would be addressed during the Competition Update held during Preseason Thunder later this month.
“I’m sure we can answer all your questions at our competition update.” NASCAR spokesperson Kerry Tharp said.
From whether owner’s points will be addressed to how giving out the points will be done, that is all suppose to addressed come January 21st during Preseason Thunder.
This is something that has been rumored to be happening for the 2011 season since last October. It was a move that was being discussed then to help with driver development, small teams attracting sponsors and bringing the series back to its roots as a developmental series. The last non-Sprint Cup driver to win a Nationwide Series championship was Martin Truex Jr. in 2005. Since then, it has been Sprint Cup regulars dominating the Nationwide Series, taking most of the wins and all the championships.
NASCAR President Brian France also announced that in the next coming weeks, they will be meeting with drivers and owners from each organization to discuss other issues currently facing NASCAR. They will be doing the discussed by organization instead of as a big town hall meeting to hopefully open up the lines of communication more.
“The old theory was that when you’re at the races with them all the time, we had the communication lines wide open,” France said about the team forums last January to Sporting News. “That’s true, but it’s too busy now to assume that we can have all the communications and get all the issues they want to get resolved with us at the track.
“So we just changed it around where we’re having these meetings. … In the town hall meetings, a lot of people didn’t want to speak up when there were 12 other drivers or something like that and they didn’t feel comfortable.”
