NASCAR Rocks

With a lot of youngsters taking to professional racing there is a concern as to whether these drivers are old enough to handle the profession as yet. NASCAR in the face of all this is contemplating whether to raise the minimum age requirement to 21 as opposed to the current age of 18.  Mike Helton the president of NASCAR said that the decision would be taken based on how well it was felt that young drivers could cope with the pressures and the stress of such a high profile job.  He said that nothing had been decided as yet and there were only talks as of now.

J.D. Gibbs the president of Joe Gibbs is not very happy about the whole thing as the team has two under 18 drivers who are all set to make it to the big league very soon.  Gibbs said that the plan was that Joey Logano would race as soon as he turned 18 and that they hoped to get in a few races by the end of the season which will not happen if the age bar is raised.  Gibbs said that he felt that the system that is in place is good and that there is no need to tinker with it. He also said that a lot of investment had been put into Logano and the other young driver Marc Davis and that from their point of view it is a bad move.

There are however supporters of this too. Former racer Richard Petty feels that he began driving at 21 and that it is the ideal age to begin.  He said there is a huge discrepancy between people who are 40 and the younger ones and at 18 that isn’t that easy to deal with. His son Kyle Petty disagrees with him though.

So there are people positioned on both sides of the argument and we’ll be keeping a keen eye on this issue.

 

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