Buschwhacking is the cancer that is killing the Nationwide Series, and it’s time to end it. In order for NASCAR to salvage the current Nationwide Series, a total ban on Cup driver participation is nessecary. If Holiday Inn or Citifinancial doesn’t like it, tough. In the old days, sponsors committed to a young driver and helped him build a reputation. If the Nationwide Series was what it is right now ten years ago, Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle would have never made it to Cup.

When a driver like Jason Leffler, who has kept at it like a good soldier at Braun Racing for four years now and is regularly one of the best performing Nationwide drivers is kicked out of his ride for a number of races because Todd Braun wants to win an Owner’s Championship, something is definitely wrong.

If you are currently in the top 35 in cup points you can race NNS but you would not earn any points. You get thr race prize money, but the the huge purse that is split at the end of the season would stay with the younger NNS teams. The cup drivers would not be eligible for this money. Only race winnings.

You still have the big names to fill seats, but the NNS champion will be someone not in the Cup top 35.

Good point there.

I seem to recall a story (I might have the drivers wrong) Jimmie Johnson talking about a particular race track he just couldn’t get figured out. One time he was following Tony Steward in practice and noticed how he got into and out of the corner. Jimmie tried what Tony was doing and was able to figure out the best way around that track. Jimmie went from have lousy showings there to finishing in the top 10.

As for Cup drivers competing full time in the Nationwide series, effecting them in the Cup Series I say yes it effects you. You might FEEL rested and 100% when you race the next race, but your body really is not. That constant wear and tear on the body over the long season will start to show. The difference of you being 100% and 99% on the track might be the difference of winning the race or finishing in the bottom 10.

I think Kyle’s drop at the end of last season was because he was racing way too much. It was taking a toll on his body, and mind. Yes he had some issues, but even when he didn’t he wasn’t finishing that well.

vdeputy: “I just don’t believe you can spread yourself too thin and do the best job in either series.”

The Busch championship has been won the past three years by a cup guy pulling full time double duty & I’ll be willing to bet this year will be won by a cup regular & this trend will continue as long as a cup guy decides to run a full Busch season. So at least in the Busch series they can do their best. As for the cup series, that’s what we’re debating & I do agree that running a full Busch series negatively impacts your cup effort. But to cost someone a championship, I don’t know. I think we will see in the near future someone pull off a double double. Hell, Kyle was pulling off the triple triple for a while last year!!!

TC: We won’t have to worry about the apocalypse until around 2012 (I have seen things, bad things, in my sleep), so don’t get too worried yet.

Ross: Timothy Peters rawks!!! You will be a huge fan of Peters after the Kentucky race. Mark my words.

I always think of Kenny Schrader when the topic arises. He had minimal success in CUP, but ran anything w/ wheels at every opportunity. He just likes to race period!

OK NASCAR exclusives don’t stone me here, but why do you suppose some CUP drivers jump in the Grand Am cars when available? It’s because they are more fun and a release from the oval grind. Same reason Stewart and others run midgets and sprints.

Even though it wasn’t part of the post, I feel that the NW series would struggle mightily if Cuppers were not in NW to draw some fans. I like attending NW races (especially Daytona Speedweeks), but I am always amazed at the low number of fans on CUP/NW weekends that don’t show for NW. Gosh, you’re already there and it’s good racing. W/o Cuppers it would be even worse. IMHO!

window – I agree that (generally speaking) the cup guys running on saturday is good for the $$ side of the teams. Short term it brings more $$ to the team. As you point out, it also is a decent way for sponsors to dip their toe in the water. It can have downsides there too though.

If marketed correctly, there may be no need for the nationwide sponsor to step up to cup. I was a part of one research study that showed the sponsor of a front running nationwide team scored much better than mid-pack cup sponsors. For about 1/3 the $$ they were achieving better results.

So, while BB&T has stepped up, one could always question if they needed to or not. In fact, the group that I was working with and funded the study was one of the mid-pack sponsors. The brand folks WANTED to show their management that they NEEDED to be in cup. The brand folks ended up not telling their management team that the study was done and kept doing the cup car. Ahh…corporate politics.

Now, the main problem I have with the splitting of time is just that…you are splitting time, energy & effort. It takes away from the cup effort.

1) You can only stay mentally focused at the level they need to focus for so long. At some point your abilities are going to diminish, mistakes happen and lap times fall off. Maybe you simply end up with a top-5 vs a win. Maybe you end up top-10 vs top-5. Maybe though you speed on pit lane, miss your pit stall or wreck.
2) Similarly, when they start flying from track to track and not getting back to their motorhome until late, that has got to hurt the next day. I travel a LOT. Private jet or not, flying around takes a lot out of you. You just cannot be as rested if you stayed in the motorhome and had a relaxing dinner and in bed at a decent time.
3) Then, when your car is not handling extremely well, (as you have heard Kyle & Carl whining about) they have not had time to work with their engineer and crew chief to make the proper adjustments. With competition the way it is, if the car is not near perfect you will likely not win on Sunday.

I cannot remember which win it was this year, but after Martin won, Jimmy said (parphrasing)…we all knew Mark was going to dominate today because he was not mad and complaining in the debrief yesterday.

The teams that are doing well week in/out dedicate that time to debrief and often with all of the drivers of the organization together. I have sat in on some debriefs that lasted almost 3 hours. At the end of one, the setup they started the race with was drastically different than the one the engineers were thinking about at the start of the conversation.

Oh and they qualified about 25th and their practice times were not in the top-25 and they finished 3rd. But, if they would have finished 10th, fans/media would have felt they had a good day given the bad weekend.

Would Kyle or Carl have won the cup last year….who knows. But I think their chances could have been better.

On Saturdays, Edwards and Busch have NNS cars that are fast off the truck thanks to big team budgets. They know that NNS races are shorter, thus their cars are much less likely to go away due to changing track conditions. They have engine packages that take full advantage of the NNS rules, with slightly more HP, but given their Cup experience, they are better suited to deal with the dreaded wheel spin on restarts. NNS bodies produce more downforce and respond better to minor aero tweaks. In short, in NNS cars, Edwards and Busch must feel like supermen.

But on Sunday, they are faced with the top-heavy, low-downforce COT and 200+ more horsepower. The longer races (especially Day-Night events) give less advantage to cars that are fast off the truck and more to cars with pit crews who can make the right adjustments to keep up with variable track conditions.

I wonder if Edwards and Busch are sometimes lulled into a false sense of security driving their “perfect” NNS cars on Saturday and wonder why, after 50 laps or so, their Cup cars handle like a shopping carts with one of the front wheels broken.