DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Paul Menard has been in two races so far this Speedweeks and involved in crashes both times.
The Richard Childress Racing driver followed up his Budweiser Shootout accident with getting swept up in another big wreck Thursday in the Gatorade Duel at Daytona and thinks the new rules to encourage pack drafting are the culprit.
"Just a product of this hybrid tandem-pack racing," Menard said after Thursday's incident with David Gilliland and Juan Pablo Montoya. "All the rule changes are just making a big mess of what was a pretty good race. I’m hoping to survive on Sunday.
“If I say my mind right now; NASCAR is trying to dictate physics. Physics says two cars are going to push and they’re trying to make rule changes to keep us from doing it, so it is kind of a hybrid of pack racing and tandem racing. It is causing a pretty unsafe situation.”
Menard is obviosuly frustrated by the circumstances and having two cars destroyed in the span of a week.
“Yes, for sure," he said. "We tore up two really good race cars not of our doing, and they’re going to tear up a hell of a lot more. They are probably going to blow up a few the way things are right now. I’m concerned we’re not going to finish. It is going to make for us, I think, riding around in the back, and trying to be there at the end. Wait for everybody else to wreck.”
| Daytona Speedweeks |
