Former champion Brad Keselowski says he’s not on the new Sprint Cup drivers council that met with NASCAR officials last weekend but hopes the council can help enhance the racing.
The council features about nine competitors, including reigning champion Kevin Harvick and last year’s rookie of the year, Kyle Larson.
“To earn the spot you had to be the highest driver in each respective manufacturer, and I wasn’t the highest Ford,’' Keselowski said Thursday while visiting the Detroit Lions’ practice at their Allen Park facility. “The numbers games being what they are with the Chevrolet drivers kind of having control of the senate, so to speak, I wasn’t going to get voted in, and I understand that.”
Among those confirmed on the council are: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle, who was not at the meeting, along with Harvick and Larson.
The purpose of the council is intended to help give drivers a more unified voice regarding safety, competition, attendance and more.
“I hate to put one thing above another, but if I was going to, I would say the cars’ reliance on aerodynamics needs to be severely decreased,” Keselowski said of the most pressing matter. “Aerodynamics are really cool from an engineering standpoint and showcase all the technology in the sport that perhaps gets written off as not having a lot of technology.
“To that end game, it also creates a lot of issues with our product to our fans. As the cars get faster by themselves with aerodynamics, they get slower in a pack because they drag each other down. That really prohibits the side-by-side passing and a lot of things we like to see as race fans and competitors that make the wheels of our sport go around, which is the fans and their happiness.
“Anything we can do to lower that would be a positive.”
Keselowski, who has 17 wins in the Sprint Cup Series and is considered one of the more vocal stars in NASCAR, says the panel needs to be approached with an open mind.
“I think we all want to see results, and results in this case mean continuing to improve the on-track product that we provide our fans,” he said. "(This) is where you have to start, with an open mind. At the end of the day, it comes down to what results we can get to. That is yet to be seen.”