Penske Competition Director "not opposed" to new limits on Cup drivers

On Wednesday, the sanctioning body announced its decision to eliminate Cup drivers with five or more years' experience from NXS and truck competition during their respective playoffs and to limit their participation to 10 races in Xfinity and seven races in trucks throughout the season. Cup regulars will also be banned in the Xfinity Dash 4 Cash races.

Certainly, fans have been vocal regarding the David-versus-Goliath superiority of drivers such as Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick competing against the racers-in-training.

Listening to the fans

NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Jim Cassidy said a consensus among fans drove the decision.

“In the end, it’s the sentiment of the fans saying, ‘Thanks for listening to us over the course of a long period of time,” Cassidy said on SiriusXM Radio. “The fans really lead the way in so much of what we do. They’re the ones consuming the product and they’re the ones that are the really guideposts for us as we go forward as a sport and evolve and make changes and work to get better.

“That working together only moves along with the foundation of the consideration of the fan base. It takes everybody. This is a long, drawn out process to move through any change that is significant. In this case, the fans really spoke loud and clear for what they were looking for.”

Over the years, the propensity of NASCAR stars to participate in the lower divisions has benefitted teams and tracks as well. The established drivers enable teams to offer sponsors a known commodity when attempting to garner financial support for a team. The ability to promote marquee drivers for an event has always been a selling point for track owners and television partners.

But it seems that after every Kyle Busch conquest — whether it was his 85th victory in Xfinity or his 46th truck win — a majority of fans lit up talk radio lines and chat rooms.

How the rules will affect Team Penske

Team Penske Competition Director Travis Geisler is still analyzing how the new rule effects their program for next year — and beyond.

“We’re all still trying to evaluate how that changes things,” Geisler said. “But it really doesn't from my perspective because our focus is to put the fastest cars out there that we can every week, regardless of who the driver is. That’s the goal. I assume that’s the same for everybody, so we’ll move on with it.

“I’m not opposed to the initiative now on NASCAR’s part. I think it’s great for young guys to build their names. I think any time you can get guys in Victory Lane and get them the experience of running for a championship is important.”

Not the first step towards taking back the lower divisions

NASCAR started weeding out Cup regulars from the Xfinity and truck tours in 2010. Team Penske won the Xfinity Series driver’s title with Brad Keselowski. It was the driver’s first full season in Cup after two previous attempts at the NXS title with JR Motorsports. That year, Boris Said and Justin Allgaier, who drove the No. 12 Penske Dodge at the time, were the only non-full-time Cup drivers to win on the tour. That same season, Joe Gibbs Racing won its third consecutive owner’s title on the tour with Busch doing the majority of driving.

The next year, drivers had to select a single series in which to earn championship points. Although drivers could compete in different series, they could only earn points and compete for titles on one tour.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the 2011 NXS drivers championship and Jack Roush won the owner’s title. In 2012, Stenhouse won his second driver’s title but the owner’s title went to Joe Gibbs Racing, who won with an All-Star cast. The following year, Team Penske won its second owner’s title with a combination of Keselowski, Joey Logano, AJ Allmendinger and protege Ryan Blaney.

The benefits of Cup drivers in lower series

Geisler believes Cup drivers provide several benefits to the lower series. Not only can an experienced driver provide detailed feedback on where the program stands, but scouts can size up potential applicants against the pros.

“I do think it’s nice that the Cup will be able to run throughout the year to help kind of gauge them,” Geisler added. “That is a lot of what goes on there. When you put somebody up against, you know, Ryan Blaney beat Kyle Busch at Bristol on a restart and stayed in front of him the rest of the race. That’s checking a box that Ryan Blaney is capable of going out there and beating the best in the business. That’s important. That’s part of what that series does for sponsors and the teams.

“I think still having them is good and at the end, the move for the championship, I understand keeping the focus on the guys who we are trying to build is a good direction. We will certainly figure out how to play within the rules the best we can and look forward to putting the best cars out there that we can.”

Not a starting or end point

Cassidy added the ruling wasn’t the first step — or the final step — in establishing the proper competitive balance for the truck and Xfinity tours. And while there are still dissenters from NASCAR’s decision, Cassidy believes the changes will strengthen the ladder series for competitors to work their way up Cup.

“You might not have 100 percent support, but in this case, it felt very good to see where we got to,” Cassidy. “In part, that was due to some of the changes we made this year going to the Chase in the Xfinity Series, in the truck series, implementing the Dash4Cash, when those events came out, we heard even louder from the fan base, “Hey, we’d like to see more of a focus on the drivers coming up and understand who is coming up, what their stories are so we can understand who these drivers are and who we’d like to follow down the road.’”