Nationwide race won’t have a full field Saturday
This will be the first time since Feb. 2008 at Auto Club Speedway that the Nationwide Series has not had a full field. It is the first time that there have been 40 or fewer cars for a Nationwide race since Watkins Glen in 2001.
Kevin Harvick, owner of KHI, which fields Nationwide teams and sells cars to other teams, was asked about the issue of the short field. Here’s what he said:
“I think it’s got to be expected. I think as the new car was coming, I think everybody knew that there was going to be some shortfalls in the fields just because of the fact that there just aren’t a lot of cars in circulation. A lot of the teams that aren’t able to participate, there are no old cars and there’s really nothing to be sold at this particular point. The processes are substantially different than what they used to be and it takes some getting used to.
"From our team and the way we do things with our customer base, we haven’t sold any cars because we don’t have any to sell. So, it’s just going to take some time to get those cars into circulation and even with our team (KHI) we don’t have full fleets of race cars at this point. We have all of our cars built through California but that’s not the case for most of the teams.
“It’s just going to take some time. It was the right decision to get the cars into circulation just for the fact from a safety standpoint. The other thing that is going to be good about the series is it’s going to teach the mechanics, crew chiefs and everybody involved how to work on the race cars because when you get to the Cup level, the cars are going to be very similar as far as the inspection process and the building process. It’s going to take some time.
“I think the short fields are going to be expected for a little while. I think when you get to this point next year if you have short fields, then you’ll have a problem." Hampton Roads