Elton Sawyer, NASCAR‘s senior vice president of competition, pushed back on criticism of the current Cup Series product on road courses. During a Tuesday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Sawyer called the product “good,” adding that Shane van Gisbergen‘s dominance on road courses should be celebrated by fans.
“I think we’ve got a product that’s good but as we said last week, we’re always looking to make our product better. I think our fans — if I would throw any nugget out there to them — let’s celebrate and get behind what SVG is doing because on these road courses, this isn’t easy. These are some of the best road course racers in the world that’s in the Cup Series,” Sawyer said. “… Back in the day when it was Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd, Tim Richmond — these guys were really good on road courses. Then you go through the Jeff Gordon era where I believe he had six in a row on road courses.
“What Shane is doing right now at this level of competition — and the competition he’s racing against is phenomenal — so I think we should embrace that, celebrate that.”
NASCAR field well off the pace of Shane van Gisbergen at road courses
Van Gisbergen is unmatched at tracks where you turn left and right. More often than not, he wins and wins by a lot. Sunday at Watkins Glen International, he beat Christopher Bell to the start-finish line by 11.1 seconds, becoming the first driver in the Era of Electronic Timing and Scoring to have multiple wins in a season with a margin of victory of 10 plus seconds. Van Gisbergen has now won four of the five road course races this season.
His dominance aside, Watkins Glen didn’t provide many fireworks. The much panned Next Gen car hasn’t provided the most excitement on short tracks and road courses, though it has generally been a winner at intermediate tracks.
Yes, Sawyer likes the current road course product. At the same time, he said NASCAR is always working to “make the product better.”
“When we look at our product on the racetrack, we want to continue to look at that and what we can do whether it’s the car, the engine, the tires, whatever it may be, to continue week in and week out to bring the best racing possible to our race fans. … Our goal is always to continue to make the product better,” Sawyer said. “I can’t emphasize that enough. We’re not just sitting still on what we have.”