Iconic Team Owner Publicly Exposes NASCAR’s Budget Problem

Saturday’s race at the 2.5-mile Superspeedway at Daytona was everything the community anticipated it to be. While the race was infamous for two bone-chilling wrecks, NASCAR nation yet again witnessed nuances of inadequate race management.

Despite being one of the highest-grossing events in the country, the promotion still has budget restrictions at hand. Joining his spotter on the popular Door Bumper Clear podcast, Kaulig Racing President shared his thoughts about Saturday’s nasty pile-up. As opposed to the team owner who discussed the matter in a courteous manner, reigning champion Joey Logano blasted NASCAR’s safety crew as he verbally assaulted them on track.

Kaulig Racing President opens up about the Daytona pile-up, exposing NASCAR’s shortcomings

Fans who are following the sport religiously will certainly remember Joey Logano’s wild outburst at Pocono a few weeks earlier. While the issue might seem shallow and inconspicuous at first glance, it certainly wasn’t so at Daytona where all hell broke loose after Logano’s teammate got into the wall triggering a massive pile-up.

At the end of Stage 2, Ty Gibbs who was pushed off by the #20 JGR car bumped the #12 Ford, causing it to go head-first into the outer wall—resulting in a multiple-car wreck. With the carnage taking on several cars, NASCAR’s safety system just wasn’t ready for a choad of this magnitude.

And what followed was more grueling for drivers who already lost valuable track positions. Picking up the cars from the wreckage, the tow truck slowly moved the cars to pits, only to end them up in the wrong pit lanes. While the scene might suggest to us that the wrecker drivers were at fault here, that simply isn’t the case.

On the contrary, the incident yet again exposed NASCAR’s budget shortcomings as it proved Logano’s vile outburst was not just because of the driver’s rage but was intended at the organization’s inadequacy. Speaking on the DBC podcast, Chris Rice of Kaulig Racing chimed in with his take when the co-host Casey Boat asked, “So that continues to be an issue though, I think Joey Logano had an issue a few weeks ago at Pocono with this new car, how are they gonna fix that?” 

“You can’t, you can’t fix it because they have no ride height rule, and then us as owners, we don’t wanna tear up the bottom of the car ’cause it so expensive so we just have to deal with it, we got to figure out how to deal with it,” said the Kaulig Racing President. 

READ MORE: Kaulig Racing President Takes a Shot at the Big Dogs as NASCAR Levels the Field

While it was Logano who got his four tires burst as he sat there in the car with the tow truck unable to move the car, this past week, the whole world was witness to NASCAR’s poor management.

Rice gets honest about his “frustration” as the Kaulig official details the pandemonium ensuing on the track

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For one, the race wasn’t for the faint-hearted. Seeing a car getting thrown in the air, only to be flipped 10 times and end up in flames is definitely not a soothing sight for the sensitive. While the race earned its notoriety for two vicious high-speed wrecks, the race also brought out NASCAR’s vulnerability as an elite promotion.

Talking on the DBC podcast, Chris Rice got honest about the chaos that was ensuing on the track. He said, “So AJ(Allmendinger) said on the radio, he says nobody can tell him, tell him to go to pit stop 3 ’cause he stopped in 40, first of and he’s ridding down pit road catching signs and these signs, they’re like $12,000 and they are not cheap.

And then when he covers about 13 box ’cause that’s where I was at, I took my headset off and I screamed to him, really loud, pit stop 3, the wrecker driver literally looked at me and went, thank you, that’s a true statement.” 

With its drivers and its crew all caught up in confusion, Rice shared how mad he was, seeing the pathetic state of the organization. “I could not believe it, I was like, Oh my Gosh, and I got so frustrated and so mad and I know the tower did, I know it’s a lot going on up there.

They’ll probably give us some explanation this week but like I did I was like everybody else, what is going on, why is it because the cars didn’t move right? when they have flat tires,” said the Kaulig official in utter disbelief. 

While NASCAR is making major strides in the safety department, they certainly need to take the above scenario into account if they have to avoid such further awful situations.

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