Drivers react to new lower series participation rules
Drivers at Martinsville Speedway on Friday supported NASCAR’s decision to limit the appearances Sprint Cup drivers can make in XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series races next year and beyond.
In 2017, “premier series drivers with more than five years of full-time experience will be eligible to compete in a maximum of 10 races in the XFINITY Series and seven races in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series,” NASCAR announced on Wednesday.
And premier series drivers — those who race for points in the Sprint Cup Series — won’t be eligible to participate in Chase races in the XFINITY and Truck Series or the XFINITY Dash 4 Cash races.
NASCAR made the changes after another year of dominance by Cup drivers in the XFINITY Series. Cup regulars have won 19 of 30 XFINITY races this year, including the two most recent Chase races in that series.
The new rules seemed to sit well with drivers at Martinsville.
“I think the end result of all this is going to be positive,” said Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing. “It’s going to make for exciting races and those guys, all these stand-alone events have had great races. I think you could potentially see even more action with trucks only or XFINITY only drivers participating in their own series.”
“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,” said Joey Logano of Team Penske. “But I think when you kind of take that hat off and look at it from more of a global view I understand it. I get why we’re doing that.”
Interestingly, a couple of Truck Series racers said they welcomed the opportunity to mix it up with the Cup stars.
“I love going and competing against them because the only way we’re going to get better is to have somebody to be able to chase,” said two-time Truck Series driver Matt Crafton.
“The experience level definitely helps those guys, but they’re obviously really talented and it’s important to get out there, learn to do restarts with them and learn how to capitalize getting to pit road like they do so well,” said William Byron, the favorite to win the Truck Series title in his rookie season.
Still, the rule will sharply curtail the presence of some Cup drivers in the XFINITY Series, most notably Kyle Busch, who has 85 career victories in NASCAR’s AAA division, including 34 since 2013.
“As a race car driver I just want to race,” said Logano. “And I hate that I don’t have the ability to race as much as I’d like, but I understand why this rule is in place.”
