NASCAR RESTRICTIONS ON CUP DRIVERS IN NATIONWIDE SERIES

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR president Mike Helton confirmed Friday at Daytona International Speedway that drivers must choose one series, and one only, in which they can compete for a championship.

That knocks defending Nationwide Series champion Brad Keselowski and 2007 champion Carl Edwards — both of whom have announced plans to compete in all 35 Nationwide races in 2011 — out of the running for the title this year.
Reid Spencer says NASCAR's ruling that drivers must select one series in which they can compete for a championship may not have the intended effect.
Keselowski and Edwards could deliver a championship to their respective car owners, Roger Penske and Jack Roush, but as far as the drivers’ championship goes, both have elected to compete for the Sprint Cup title.
Nationwide, the series title sponsor, would have preferred a sunset provision that would have enabled Keselowski and Edwards to compete for the title this year, but NASCAR drew the line.
“It was considered, and Nationwide had expressed that to us, as well as some of the drivers,” NASCAR president Mike Helton said Friday. “Particularly Carl and Brad had expressed it as, ‘OK, can you just give me one more year? We stuck to the decision, once we made it, that we felt like it was better for everybody concerned, the whole industry, to go ahead and draw the line and not have any lingering effects to it.”
Helton said NASCAR’s purpose was to force more exposure and attention on developing drivers who aren’t competing full time in the Cup series.
There’s a danger the move could have the opposite effect. Cup drivers will continue to grab the headlines by winning Nationwide races. Kyle Busch won 13 of the 35 races in 2010, followed by Keselowski with six and Edwards with four. All told, full-time Cup drivers won 33 races.
Will NASCAR’s rule actually cheapen the Nationwide championship and render it less significant, given that the strongest drivers are barred from winning the title?
“It’s still a championship,” Helton said. “It’s still a big old trophy. It’s still a nice check. It’s still a guy who went out there and competed against (42) teams and became the champion out of that series. It’s still a NASCAR national series championship.”
But will that big old trophy continue to shine as brightly?
REID SPENCER