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Age Restriction in Cup Requires Cup Restriction in Nationwide Too

1/22/08: SOZ Studios, MI - By Dennis Michelsen "DMIC" (RaceTalkRadio.com)

Last week NASCAR let the news leak that they are considering changing the age restrictions for the Sprint Cup series. Just a few years ago there were no age restrictions at all. No owner even contemplated putting a sixteen-year-old kid in a ride worth tens of millions of dollars! But along came Kyle Busch with owner Jack Roush wanting to put him in a Craftsman Truck ride and NASCAR reacted to make eighteen the magic number for driving in one of NASCAR's series. Now along comes Joey Logano and suddenly eighteen doesn't seem old enough either! But if they are going to tweak the age for the Cup series they better tweak the rules for the Cup drivers in the Nationwide Series too!

Age is Just a Number

Setting an absolute age for determining the skill of doing anything is a joke! Head to any late model stockcar series race and you will see some youngsters that show more maturity and skill than others. You will also see twenty-one-year-olds that have less maturity than the best sixteen year olds! If NASCAR had the twenty-one-year-old rule in effect all along then Kyle Busch would have been a rookie last season and not one of the feared veterans in the sport. Instead of setting a set age NASCAR should set the bar by experience instead!

Experience Does Matter

Last season NASCAR allowed Jacques Villeneuve to make his Nextel Cup debut at Talladega! I would much rather see Joey Logano racing at Dover in the Nationwide Series than allowing Villeneuve to make his debut at Talladega. The argument was made that Jacques had hundreds of laps in high-powered cars at the elite levels of open wheel racing. But when drivers such as Robby Gordon and Tony Stewart made the move from open wheels to NASCAR they had to qualify just like everyone else! Now NASCAR says that just because a driver isn't twenty-one he is not qualified for Cup? The decision should be made based on ability not age!

Where is the Issue

Usually when a rule change is made in NASCAR there is a good reason behind it based on performance. While no one in NASCAR seemed concerned with Kyle Busch, when he made his Craftsman Truck debut at age sixteen NASCAR knew they needed to make a rule to prevent even younger driver debuts. Kyle Busch won three races before his twenty-first birthday. Last year at age twenty-two Kyle Busch was not less aggressive than he was in his first few years at the Cup level. Would another year in Busch have helped Brian Vickers? He was the champion at age nineteen! Yes there are cases of drivers being rushed to Cup that could have used more seasoning. But the free market took care of those issues just fine. NASCAR might argue that drivers are more mature by age twenty-one and less likely to get into trouble. But Shane Hmiel, Tyler Walker and Aaron Fike; the last three drivers to be suspended were over twenty-one!

Restriction Needed in Nationwide Too

If NASCAR does set an age restriction for drivers to reach the Cup level they better make a change to the Nationwide Series rules too. Right now the best sponsors are going after Cup drivers racing full or part time in the Nationwide Series. If NASCAR doesn't do anything to discourage this then the brightest young drivers will have to go to ARCA instead of the Nationwide Series to gain experience. This season Michael McDowell is making the leap to Cup instead of spending time in the Nationwide Series based on a sponsor decision. If NASCAR restricts the movement of drivers under twenty-one to the Cup level they need to make sure those drivers will have an opportunity in the lower series.

Age alone should not be the deciding factor for when a driver is ready for the highest level in NASCAR. Drivers mature at different levels and the free market of teams and sponsors can handle this decision. NASCAR created this problem of Cup drivers competing in the Nationwide Series so now to claim they need time to develop drivers is a contradiction of goals. Setting an age limit is the easy way out to decide eligibility for anything! But if NASCAR does make a switch they need to also open up opportunities for young drivers in the Nationwide Series by restricting Cup driver participation at that level. Simply removing the ability of a team with a Cup driver to get a provisional starting position would be a good start to making that happen.

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