From the NASCAR site DJ is 33rd in points out of the 32 drivers ahead of him approx 18 drivers are regulars from the NASCAR SPRINT SERIES.Which would mean he could be in the top 20 of the old BUSCH Series.This is when that series was for upcoming stars not for the big money boys who want to run the whole NASCAR show now.
There are currently twenty one NW regulars ahead of Kennington . The 61 points he picked up yesterday will move him up one position to thirty second position .
If it hadn't snowed yesterday i wouldn't have had to plow the driveway which is as relevant as your if it was the old Busch series and if there was no Cup drivers comment .
The Busch series was not intended to be a developmental series . It was intended to spread the NASCAR brand to tracks that could not hold a Cup race and to make a multi day show at selected Cup events . In the first five years of the Busch series only three drivers ever advanced to the Cup series out of the top twenty in Busch points . All three were either the son or the brother of a Cup driver so the argument could be made that the Busch series was set up for nepotism . In the first five years of the Busch series 95 % of all the super speedway races were won by Cup drivers including the first one by Dale Earnhardt . If you advance these stats to the first ten years of the series they only change by a couple of percent and a couple of drivers . In the 80s far more drivers and with out question better drivers came out of the ASA series bi-passing the Busch series including Mark Martin , Alan Kulwicki , Rusty Wallace etc . If you advance the same stats to the 2000s you will see that drivers like Carl Edwards skipped the Busch series and went strait to Cup or came out of ARCA , USAC or other series .
This crying about Cup drivers in the NW series needs to stop unless you think NASCAR is going to reduce my NW tickets that i have to buy in order to keep my Cup tickets at Daytona from $120 to $50 to watch Morgan Shepherd , Eric McClure and Derick Cope .
Hmm lets take the 18-20 Cup regulars out of the Nationwide Series and watch 25 cars go in circles for 2-3 hours...with all the Start and Parks we'll be down to 18 by the 50th lap, then down to 13 by lap 100 with wrecks and equipment failures.
Cup Regulars make the Nationwide Series worth it. Plus wouldn't you love to be able to say "I've raced with/pitted beside Tony Stewert, Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick" ?
If we could get back to how it was around 2000-2001, it'd be alright. Nobody's really looked at why the number of Cup guys went down from (roughly) 98-'02 and how, if possible, the Nationwide series could get to that again...
Good points and bad ones but ask the non cup drivers what they think and how they like to run second fiddle to the big boys and what they think about not getting the big purses (first ,second,thirds).Pitting or racing beside the big boys (Stewarts,Edwards,Harvicks ,Etc,)thats great but the big point is they (Cup drivers) get all the big dollars and the regular driver that tries his best get the scraps.Nice to have big fields but give the little guy a chance to make the big money.Tell me when the last little guy won a BUSCH or Nationwide series race and I think you may have to go back a couple years to find one.RacerAJ you say take the regular cup drivers out and watch 25 cars go in circles you say it would not be good as the field would drop.True but what do you do when your Cup regulars retire or call it quits and this will happen if not now in the future.Where do your up coming drivers come from then.Give the small teams a chance ask DJ ,Pete Shepherd for example what they think.(Shepherd lost his ride with Roush Racing )
^Yeah, because
a) Bringing a sponsor who's cheques bounced, and
b) Smashing up an ARCA car in qualifying,
didn't have any impact whatshowever on that...But I digress...