
When NASCAR first publicly announced the ‘Open Exemption Provisional’ rule earlier in the month, Denny Hamlin more or less made clear what he felt.

On Saturday afternoon, in his first press conference of the season ahead of the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, he expounded on that with a tune you would expect from the tweet.
“I don’t know. I just think – it reeks of desperation,” Hamlin said. “I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t know how nice you can really say it. It just feels like you are really trying to get any kind of headline you can to be relevant and I don’t love it.”
And then a pause.
“To me, it is a short-term gain, long-term loss,” he continued. “I just think that you are premier Stock Car series in the US. The premier racing sport in the US; be the big boys and force people to come in here and get their credentials and do it the natural way. I don’t think it is going to be a big factor anywhere other than Daytona, but just simply put, saying that someone has a name that interests you and that they are going to have an automatic bid in the highest form of motorsports in the US – I don’t love it.”
The rule, for those unfamiliar, allows NASCAR to add a 41st driver to a full field of 40 cars for a driver with world class credentials. That driver has to apply for the provisional and be granted it 90 days before a race.
That driver can still make the 40-car field but if he has to fall back on the provisional, that team forfeits all money earned and only will appear on the final rundown should they win the race.
On the other hand, Ryan Blaney feels more positive about it, especially since the first implementation of the rule will come in the form of his former Penske teammate Helio Castroneves, who is now locked into the Daytona 500 with Trackhouse Racing.
“I might be biased, but I love Helio,” Blaney said. “So I was psyched when it was like, ‘OK, he’s running the 500. Oh, and he’s locked in? That’s great for Helio.’ He was in IndyCars when I was over there at Penske for a while before he moved on, so I love Helio and I’m happy that I’m going to be able to race against him.
“I loved growing up watching him run IndyCars, and then to get to be a semi-teammate driving for the same guy for a long time with Roger, so I didn’t really have any thoughts about it, to be honest with you. I was just excited that Helio is going to be running the 500.”
Chase Elliott said he was on the fence’ about the topic.
“I’d hate to have a Helio Castroneves, a Max Verstappen, a Lewis Hamilton or someone come in to run a race and then miss the show due to something silly,” Elliott said. “So I can certainly see that aspect of it from a promotor side of things, where you wouldn’t want to risk that because that’s obviously going to be a big deal for you. But I also think that with prestigious races, there should be some sort of integrity in making the show. I think that’s part of what makes the race prestigious. You know, it’s a hard event to make.
“I think you see that with the Indianapolis 500, or you see that at the Chili Bowl, right? It’s a hard race to make. It’s a big deal just to get into the show, so I can see both sides of the fence there. I think it’s totally fine.. I just don’t want to ever degrade or hurt the long-term integrity of the sport and take the prestige out of events that should be some of our biggest days of the year.”
Richard Childress Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon are largely supportive.
“I think it’s a unique ruling or statute that could benefit the sport as a whole,” Busch said. “It just kind of depends on how it’s used. I’m still a little fuzzy on all of the details of it. Castroneves is a cool guy who’s won the Indy 500 and now he gets a chance to run the Daytona 500, so I think that’s neat. I think you could look at some other guys, whether a Verstappen or Louis (Hamilton), somebody like that who could come over here and do something like that. I don’t know. Sure, they could. They have the credentials to do so. I think that would be something that would be cool. Whether or not you could actually get them to do it is another point.”
But again, he has no qualms with the guaranteed starting spot element of it because there is a real marketing bonus to it.
“I don’t take exception to it,” Busch said. “I think there’s a money factor there too. I think that’s fine. It’s literally just to bring eyeballs to our sport, they’re fans, they’re demographic of where they come from and whether they’re from a different country, which Castroneves is, maybe makes some fans.”
Dillon says champions from other major disciplines should always have a guaranteed starting spot.
“To me, I think it would be interesting if you just gave the IndyCar champion and the F1 champion those opportunities,” Dillon said. “I don’t know. You want to put eyeballs on the sport in any way possible. Either should bring some of those. The champions in the other top two forms of racing is a good place too. It’s interesting. We’ll see how it all works out. Maybe RCR will get involved in it and want to put in one of those one day.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.