NASCAR president Steve Phelps understands drivers were frustrated by the organization's slow response to dealing with a deficiency with the Next Gen car that left drivers susceptible to injury. He spoke to Jordan_Bianchi about safety and other issues.
Dec 6, 2022NASHVILLE — Sitting inside a conference room overlooking downtown Nashville, NASCAR president Steve Phelps pauses before answering a question, begins to reply then stops again to compose himself.
The car delivered, and I don’t know any other way to say that. And I would say the car, and the drivers delivered as the drivers are piloting the car, and we just have drivers that are up on the wheel in every single race. I was thrilled with the year, and it had some ups and downs for sure, but overall, it was tremendous.I don’t think people fully understand the magnitude of the lift it was to make this car a reality.
It’s not just a not cliche, they’re not just words, but the safety of our drivers is the single most important thing we have. For us, the car was designed with safety in mind, but it was really around injuries that were catastrophic. That’s where it started. The Ryan Newman intrusion at the Daytona 500 or Joey Logano’s roof crushing at Talladega , we needed to make sure the car was strong, which it is.
First of all, I don’t think the drivers truly believe that. I think they know that we care about their safety. I think in some cases, the drivers say those things to try to have an impact, that we’re going to accelerate change. But overall, if that’s truly how the drivers feel, how does that make me feel, personally? It’s not true. Because we care very much about their safety. It makes me sad because that’s just not a true statement.
To me, I think it’s kind of what is the DNA of NASCAR. When you have 40 drivers on a racetrack going the speeds that they’re going at all trying to beat and bang and pass each other, they’re going to have disagreements about it. That’s a perfect example, Joey and William saw that very differently from each other. And that’s exactly what we want. Sometimes it goes over the line, for sure —, obviously, crossed the line in our opinion — but we don’t create the storylines. This isn’t WWE.
Think about all the new fans, and that’s what’s going to happen in Chicago. We’re going to have this entirely new group of fans that are gonna go to that race and be like, “Wow, this is what it means to be at a NASCAR race. I didn’t think this is what it was. I’m so excited to be here.” That’s what’s going to happen in Chicago.
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