Nationwide Series team principals met with NASCAR at the U.S. National Whitewater Rafting Center in Charlotte for two hours on Tuesday.
But the itinerary wasn’t what the teams expected. A memo was sent to team owners with the agenda stating “we will provide follow-up from our meetings in August.”
Yet instead of the town-hall type of events that have been held this season — even with the Nationwide teams two months ago — there was approximately 15 minutes of NASCAR's vice president of competition reiterating information that has been on the table for the last two months. The only newsworthy information offered to teams was the possibility of NASCAR limiting teams to 10 chassis for the full-time roll-out of the new car for 2011, changing restrictor plates for manufacturers and the potential for retaining leftover tires from races.
The elephant in the room — whether Sprint Cup drivers would compete under the same points system as Nationwide Series-only drivers — was never broached. There was no question-and-answer session that followed. What followed was 90-plus minute marketing seminar from Nationwide which had been put on the back burner for the second series sponsor since March.
While the teams express gratitude for Nationwide, which still has four years on its NASCAR contract, the overall consensus was that the sanctioning body picked “the worst day of the week to do it” particularly with the final test of the new car occurring on Wednesday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Sources added that NASCAR had hoped to make an announcement this weekend regarding the new NNS rules for next year, but the news will be delayed so that series director Joe Balash can continue canvassing competitors.
Current Nationwide Series points leader Brad Keselowski understands that “the health of the sport” should be the top consideration when evaluating how the points are rewarded.
“How I feel about it is quite simple and I felt this way before I was a Cup driver — when I was a Nationwide-only driver — and I feel this way now, I have no regrets either way,” said Keselowski, the current points leader. “I don’t regret not wining it the last two years when I got beat by Cup drivers and I don’t have any regrets if I win it this year, beating Cup drivers. It is what it is.
“In my eyes, I see the No. 1 series being Cup and the No. 2 series obviously being Nationwide. Think about that — very clearly — about how well the Nationwide Series is. It’s not in as bad of shape as everyone says it is. Does it have the depth that we’d like it to have? No, but it’s still profitable. It has sponsors. We may not have everything we want, but we’re OK.”
For the last few years, it has been the better known Cup drivers that have attracted sponsorship and have been used to market the series — particularly from the track perspective when advertising races. While NASCAR’s Triple A tour has been used as a feeder series for years, an increasing number of “buy rides” — drivers that bring money to a team owner for the opportunity to drive cars — have crept into the system.
The resources for discovering the next Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin or Kyle Busch have not been readily available to develop talent. Case in point, Keselowski’s Penske Racing teammate Justin Allgaier, who is fourth in the NNS point standings. Due to a lack of sponsorship for Allgaier’s NNS effort he is currently looking for a team to call home next year.
Still, as Keselowski acknowledges, the Nationwide Series is still the second most popular motorsports tour in the U.S. Why change the format?
“There is no professional sport anywhere that has a successful second tier and NASCAR does,” Keselowski said. “Think about what that means. We have a self-standing number two series to our sport and if you change that, be prepared for the repercussions. There are four series for stock cars from Cup all the way down to ARCA. If you eliminate the Nationwide format as it is right now, it simply eliminates one of the those series. It takes the place of it and kills the truck or the ARCA level. Most likely the truck level and I don’t think that’s good for the sport. That’s not something we need to do.
“If I were running full time in the series or not, next year would be irrelevant. I think it’s bad for the sport to try to change the No. 2 series which has been very successful. NASCAR has done a good job of getting it where it’s at. There’s a lot of equity built into the series. There’s a question to its identity, but its identity is just that — it’s its lack of identity. It’s a unique series as it stands right now.”
And the Nationwide Series still provides the best form of competition for rising talent. While one knock on the sport is the lack of Nationwide-only winning drivers because the Cup drivers have a tendency to dominate, drivers that are gifted enough do persevere. Allgaier proved the point at Bristol Motor Speedway — one of the toughest tracks on the tour — against a bevy of Cup stars.
“I know everybody wants to look at it and say, ‘how come — name your Nationwide driver — isn‘t winning races? Well, let’s blame Kyle, Joey (Logano), Carl (Edwards) or Brad.’ Well, that’s not really the answer,” Keselowski adds. “There’s a series to run — one of four series. If it was just as easy as allowing Trevor (Bayne) or Justin to win races, there’s two other series below.
“My perspective is they’re there because we’re there and because the Cup drivers bring the attention and credibility to the sport, to bring some sponsorship and to bring a desire for them to compete against us and prove themselves. So if you remove that, then you just have the Truck series. That‘s all there is — simply the Truck series and I don’t think that’s in the best interest of the sport.
“As it pertains to my plans for the sport, we have sponsors at Penske Racing that we’ve made commitments to, to run and it’s my intention to live up to the commitments and promises I made to everyone on my team to be here for multiple years and run for the championship.”
