Busch opposes minimum age rule proposal

Busch opposes minimum age rule proposal

Kyle Busch is expressing his opposition to NASCAR’s proposed rule that would require drivers to be 21 years old before competing in the Sprint Cup Series. Busch, who is 22 and a three-year veteran of full-time competition in the series, says NASCAR already has discretion concerning who can drive its cars by virtue of its approval process. He points out that the system of building drivers through the Craftsman Truck and Nationwide series is already working and makes drivers ready for the Cup series. Busch himself was a victim of a similar rule. He was ready to race in NASCAR at 16 and had signed on for a season when the sanctioning body raised the age minimum to 18. “In the truck series you go from the half-mile to the three-quarter mile to the mile to the mile-and-a-half and so on up to the two-and-a-half-mile,” he said Tuesday during a break in Sprint Cup testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “[Nationwide] Series, same way; Cup series same way.” Busch says that drivers are always under NASCAR’s “watchful eye” and that just because one has raced in another series doesn’t mean they are cleared to run in the Cup series. “That’s why a lot of people run ARCA in Talladega and Daytona, stuff like that, to get their approval process,” he said. Busch, who moves from Hendrick Motorsports to Joe Gibbs Racing this year, said the main person he is discussing, and the driver who is most immediately impacted in the debate, is Joey Logano, the 17-year-old who will debut in the Nationwide Series for JGR this season. “You’ve got a 17-year-old kid who is the best talent that we’ve got that we’ve seen - not just Joe Gibbs Racing, but NASCAR - that we’ve seen coming up through the years and the ranks and stuff that has the ability, that can get the job done,” Busch said. “You get him into a [Nationwide] Series car this year. He wins a few races this year. You get him into the [Nationwide] Series next year, he dominates and wins the championship. The following year he wins the championship again.” And then he will have to run again in that series because he is still underage. “You’re going to make him run again because he’s not yet 21? That’s stupid,” Busch said. “You know, put him in a Cup car. He’s got the ability to do it. It’s just about NASCAR going through the approval. If they think a person isn’t quite qualified to race in the Cup Series they can hold them back.” SceneDaily.com Bookmark to:

Date: January / 30 / 2008
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Car News Overview for January / 30 / 2008

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