MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Joey Logano gave his take on the new rule limiting Cup participation in the lower tier national touring series in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing while speaking to the media at Martinsville.
During his media availability this morning prior to first Sprint Cup Series practice, the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford talked about NASCAR implementing a new policy starting in 2017 curtailing the number of starts a Cup driver can make in the XFINITY Series and Camping World Truck Series, and how it would affect his organization’s operations in the XFINITY Series.
“It affects them a lot. It affects the sport a lot,” Logano said. “As a race car driver, I want to race all the time, so if I put my race car driver hat on I think, ‘Man, this kind of stinks,’ because I want to drive. But I think when you kind of take that hat off and look at it from more of a global view I understand it.”
NASCAR instituted a new policy on Wednesday that starting in 2017, limits Sprint Cup Series drivers with five or more years of experience at the highest level to 10 races a season in the XFINITY Series and seven in the Camping World Truck Series. Those Cup drivers won’t be allowed to take part in the four XFINITY Dash 4 Cash races next season or in the last eight races of either the XFINITY or Truck Series.
The rule doesn’t apply to drivers with less than five years experience in Cup, such as Austin Dillon and Kyle Larson, or drivers with five or more years experience in Cup who are declared to run for points in either the XFINITY Series or Truck Series, such as Elliott Sadler.
While this has largely been positively received by fans, it’s been a mixed bag amongst drivers.
“I get why we’re doing that. I think it’s important to have Cup racers out there because I think growing up as a young race car driver I learned that you only get better when you’re racing against people that are better than you, and I think this has the ability to give young drivers that and young crew chiefs coming up through the XFINITY Series,” he said giving one of the common arguments by proponents for allowing Cup drivers in XFINITY and Truck competition.
“I think it gives them the ability to work with Cup drivers and things like that, so I think that’s good that they have that mix in there, but at the same time you also want to have the opportunity for young drivers to get into the seat and drive it at some point. I get that. If you look at it from the business end, it’s no secret that a lot of sponsors want to have the big-name drivers in there. They want to have Sprint Cup racers that can go out there and are proven winners, so that’s definitely gonna change the game quite a bit from the business side of our sport.”
