NASCAR fans in disbelief at Elton Sawyer's defense of Cup Series racing
Motorsport fans clapped back at Elton Sawyer after the NASCAR senior vice president of competition attempted to defend the current state of Cup Series racing.
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer has drawn the ire of motorsport fans after defending the current state of Cup Series racing.
On Sunday, Austin Cindric coasted down victory lane and later acknowledged that racing isn't “always pretty.” Though the Jack Link's 500 didn’t deliver a ‘Big One’ in the closing stages of the event, there was no shortage of controversial moments at Talladega Superspeedway.
Preece and Joey Logano, who slammed the race-winner over the radio, were disqualified by NASCAR for failing post-race inspections, while Brad Keselowski and Christopher Bell each suffered massive wrecks - the latter of which prompted a heartfelt apology from Denny Hamlin.
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While Sunday’s race ultimately ended in a photo-finish, many viewers insisted that the event left much to be desired. Multiple drivers - including William Byron - acknowledged that some fans may not be pleased with the “locked-in” pack racing, during which cars are unable to pass each other or make a run.
While making an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Sawyer threw his support behind the product that NASCAR is pushing out - insisting that those in attendance at Talladega were on the edge of their seats watching the Jack Link's 500.
“When you’re sitting in race control … [you can see] our fans standing on their feet. We’re four-wide, in some cases five-wide, back to single file and our fans are standing up and cheering,” Sawyer said. “And then you go look at the metrics. And you look at the stats after the race and you have 67 lead changes among 23 different drivers.
“When we look at all of that, what are we trying to fix? What’s not going the way we would like it? I get it when we start talking about short track packages when we have a guy that leads 400 some laps of a 500-lap race. OK, we’re gonna do our best to try to get to work on that and figure out what we can do.
“But when you have 67 lead changes among 23 different drivers, I’m not real sure what we’re going to work on there,” he continued. “But as always, we wanna get better. We want to have 70 lead changes, 25 or 30 different drivers that lead races. That’s a lot of words there, but the short answer is we’re always looking at our product. Whether it’s superspeedways, road course, intermediate or short track, we’re always looking at it and trying to make it better.”
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Taking to social media, droves of critics clapped back at Sawyer for ignoring the glaring problems currently present in the Cup Series. “I’m fully convinced Elton Sawyer doesn’t know anything about racing at this point. Using lead changes at a superspeedway is truly a sign of how desperate they are to NOT fix the nextgen and he doesn’t even realize what he’s admitting when he says that,” one X user wrote.
Another added: “That's the words of a man who is going to do *exactly* what he wants to do, with near zero input/consideration for what the fans/teams/drivers think is healthy for competition and the sport, and then rationalize ANY outcome as being sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. Tone deaf.”
