“Our fans are spoiled.”
And with that, Joey Logano set off a fire storm of opinions across the industry.
“I love our race fans, but think about other sports for a second,” he continued during his weekly hour on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Think about it. When are you going to meet an NFL player? Can you meet an NFL player anytime, three hours before the game?
“But you can meet me 30 minutes, 15 minutes, five minutes before I strap into the car, you can take a picture with me. I am there. All the other racers are the same. We walk down the red carper before a race, and all the drivers stop and sign autographs, or at least we try to. It’s hard to get everyone to but that’s the norm in our sport.
“That doesn’t happen in any other sport so to say that we’re not accessible is wrong. That’s not the case at all. We’re very accessible. I feel like the drivers are normal folks, maybe there’s some that live a bigger lifestyle than others, but the majority of them are normal racers.
“They’re not any different than the racers who race on Saturday night, and it’s just a bigger stage and they’ve made a little more money, and that changes a little bit of the lifestyle but they are racers at heart.”
That went over as well as you might expect.
That assertion was even pushed back against by one incoming full-time driver in Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar.
To which was then met with pushback itself from NASCAR employees.
What this boils down to is that NASCAR has spent a lot of time over the past several years to cut costs and even minimize time at the track.
Instead of a full practice day on Friday and practice plus qualifying on Saturdays before race days on Sunday, NASCAR now has a reduced 45 minute practice window on Saturday that rolls right into qualifying.
While there is fan activation time available throughout the weekend and on Sunday, a lot of time is consumed by drivers needing to service all of their sponsorship activation responsibilities and there is less time for fans as a result.
The topic came up on the Door, Bumper Clear podcast hosted by Cup Series spotters Brett Griffin, TJ Majors and Freddie Kraft who largely sided with Hocevar in a episode that was guest hosted by Tyler Reddick.
“Tyler Reddick’s caliber of driver would be doing 60-plus sponsorship appearances a year but now the sponsors are not spending the money to fly the drivers in,” said Griffin, also a veteran agent and marketer. “For Joey to sit here, who grew up rich as hell in the northeast, who raced his whole life and races now, he said NASCAR drivers make a little bit more money than Saturday drivers … the fuck they do.
“How much money does Landon Huffman make a year racing? How much money does Joey Logano make racing?
“A fan my age is accustomed to being able to meet Bill Elliott at McDonalds in Charlotte by UNCC after qualifying from 6-8. Joey Logano, how many times does he go to Planet Fitness a year to sign autographs. He’s not doing it near as much as he used to. Once he signed his seven year Penske Pennzoil contrat, COVID hit, he went missing.
“Don’t give me this, and it’s not just about Joey Logano, but it’s about any driver who doesn’t appreciate our fans because our fans spend $2000 to $5000 a weekend to take their families to the race track.”
He said the access in the garage is limited to those who can afford to pay even more for garage passes and that those who Logano is taking pictures with on the grid are just sponsor guests.
Which is largely true as PR reps largely shield drivers from thos who were not invited to the car.
The PR reps themselves are now hired by the teams and drivers, where they used to be hired by the sponsors, with the primary goal of creating positive engagement and media engagement.
Some have pointed out that the access is way greater in other motorsports like NHRA, IMSA and IndyCar but those leagues don’t have the same popularity as NASCAR either.
Ultimately, shorter race weekends and less midweek sponsorship appearances have decreased the overall time fans get with drivers during NASCAR events.
At the same time, the decreased time spent at NASCAR venues has also allowed Cup drivers to spend more time at grassroots events like when Kyle Larson, William Byron, Ryan Preece, Erik Jones and Alex Bowman compete at events like World of Outlaws, High Limit Racing, CARS Tour and ASA Super Late Models.
So there are ways to access drivers in ways that didn’t exist over a decade ago.