Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Daytona, Logano and the future of NASCAR

Football’s Super Bowl is over and now it’s time to throw our attention to the Super Bowl of stock-car racing. As you know, Joey Logano will make NASCAR history by being the youngest driver to start in a Daytona 500. Honestly, the prospect of an 18-year-old kid driving in NASCAR’s premier race makes me slightly nervous.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Logano is an extremely talented and impressive driver, but the thought of him on the high-banked battlefield at 190 miles per hour--only inches from other cars driven by seasoned, take-no-prisoners veterans--is enough to warrant a trip to the drug store for some Maalox. Maybe my worries stem from the fact that I am a father of teenagers and, although I would want my children to go were their talents take them, I would still fret.

Surly Logano realizes he has to play it smart by keeping his car in a position to avoid trouble. No one expects him to ride the draft to the lead on the last lap and I’m sure the other drivers will keep a watchful and cautious eye on his driving.

While considering Logano’s historic Daytona 500 start, I couldn’t help but think about what the future will look like for this young man and NASCAR. Assuming he races until he’s 40, the complexion of the sport two decades later may be something we won’t recognize.

In 15 years the type of vehicles coming out of Detroit could be much different than the models that current Sprint Cup cars represent. Recently, at the Automotive News World Congress, auto manufacturers painted a future that relies heavily on small, lightweight plug-in hybrids and battery-powered automobiles. The internal combustion engine could become a rare find under the hoods of cars in the near future.

Does this mean that the only thing fans will hear at the Daytona 500 of 2020 is the silence of electric vehicles whooshing around the high banks? I hope not, because that would be the day I stop being a fan. But the direction of Detroit does present questions about the future. In the short term, companies like Ford are still committed to vehicles like the Fusion, but as consumer tastes change, will the automakers feel compelled to have their new, solar-panel-powered mini-cars represented in the sport?

This all depends on whether there are Detroit automakers in 2020. Ford lost $14.6 billion last quarter, Chrysler is teaming up with Fiat in a desperate attempt to stay afloat (Fiats in NASCAR?), and General Motors is spending lavishly on developing the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt that needs a number of technological breakthroughs to avoid becoming a pipe dream.

Hopefully the economy will recover before it’s too late and people will begin to purchase cars again. But in this economic climate, that’s not going to happen tomorrow. As Frank Rich, a columnist for the New York Times wrote on Sunday, “What are Americans still buying? Big Macs, Campbell’s soup, Hershey’s chocolate and Spam—the four food groups of the apocalypse.”

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