Logano Highlights Problem Facing Lower Series | NASCAR Going International (feat. Ryan Vargas)

Joey Logano highlights the business model challenges facing Xfinity Series and Truck Series team owners. Ryan Vargas joins the show to discuss NASCAR’s presence in Europe.

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Thumbnail Cred: EuroNASCAR

0:00 Hamlin scheme
1:50 Logano talks Trucks, Xfinity
6:00 Euro NASCAR talk

Joey Lano continues to shine a light on one of the biggest problems facing the truck and XFinity series and with NASCAR beginning to push International boundaries Ryan Vargas stops by to talk stock car Racing’s growth in Europe how’s it going y’all my name is Eric welcome to a midweek episode of out of the groove in a few moments Ryan Vargas will stop by to talk about the NASCAR Euro series NASCAR’s continued International push but before he stops by we’ve got some other news to react to

Wait a second is it just me or is everything getting more red it’s getting warm in here oh gosh jump scare that is a bright red new paint scheme for Denny Hamlin breaks plus um okay I have no real words so I’ll let the replies to Joe Gibbs Racing’s Twitter post do the

Talking for me yeah I think that was the first word that popped into my head as well that’s a good comparison as well this does look like one of those generic create your own EA Sports paint schemes from back in the day come on it’s not

That bad see yeah this would be perfect I’m all for simple paint schemes but it has to have something like even Dale Earhart’s classic plain black number three had some gray and colorful trim breaks plus I believe is owned by the same group that owns Mavis Tire and

Break so it’s great to see one of Denny Hamlin’s new sponsors continuing their partnership this car will certainly be easy to spot on track I just think in the modern day especially with the lack of contingency decals a plane scheme like this is is jarring would love for

Them to incorporate some small design here or there but yeah there you have it new paint scheme new look for Denny Hamlin Joey legano is a two-time Nascar Cup Series champion he has a weekly radio segment on SiriusXM and this week he brought up a topic he’s discussed

Many times before legano highlighted the challenging business model that comes with owning a nasar truck or Xfinity Series team I get paid to drive a cup car that’s great I have to pay to drive a exfinity car or a truck I have to show up with money on doorstep to drive one

If a NASCAR champion a two-time NASCAR champion can’t drive an exfinity car for free never let get paid for that that has to pay to drive one how do you expect a kid that’s got no experience to come up with the money from you know a

Sponsor to pay to go do something like that and that’s just I hate that even if you win the race the team will lose money if there is no sponsorship attached to it legano admits that he does not have a solution it’s expensive to race in the truck or exfinity series

He admits that if he was a Truck Series team owner he too would likely go go seek out the driver who brings the biggest check he’s not pretending to have some sort of solution legano just is pointing out a very real problem in the lower NASCAR ranks and I would say

The issue of pay drivers isn’t exclusive to NASCAR I think it’s seen across a wide variety of Motorsports across the world but that’s not to say it’s still not a problem the purse money in trucks is not enough for teams to solely hire drivers based on Merit they need major

Sponsorship dollars to fund their business and that’s a problem that is a huge problem I’m not sure the best way to fix it but it is a problem that being said I’m not sure it’s quite as big of a problem as Joey Lano makes it out to be

The Truck Series has turned into more of a development series I think if you’re a young driver who shown some ability who shown promise who has a ton of potential I think there are still manufacturers teams and sponsors willing to invest in you I wouldn’t look through the entire

Full-time Truck Series roster this year and there’s some great examples in there like a Nick Sanchez he’s had help in the past the drive for Diversity Program rev racing but now he’s a legit Spire project he’s got gainbridge sponsorship I think for the whole year could say the

Same thing about Raja Karu another drive for diversity driver he’s had plenty of help along the way but now hendrickcars.com sponsoring him for the full season he’s a legit Chevy Prospect Lane Riggs I think he’s a front row Prospect Bailey curry with niece Motorsports they’ve got worldwide Express on his truck all year

That’s a track house/ n sponsor they believe in bayy Curry’s ability Cory Heim is a legit Toyota Prospect they are investing in his and their own Futures so that’s my point if you’re a young driver with promise I think there is still room for you to make your way into

The truck series solely based or primarily based on Merit if you’re a veteran driver like Joey loano who’s just dipping your toe in to try and Chase a trophy then no the payout is not enough for that to be a justifiable expense that is a problem it’s one that

Hopefully over time maybe with the next TV deal changing models will evolve but I don’t think it’s quite as Doom and Gloom as Joey Lano makes it out to sound I think his case is just very unique I think the truck series is a development series same can be said about the

Exfinity series it’s where big sponsors big teams big manufacturers invest in their Futures by giving young Potential Prospect specs experience there are veterans in the truck series of course like Matt craft and Ben rhods but they’re both multi-time Champions so to say they don’t belong is obviously

Ridiculous there is not nearly as much money in trucks and exfinity as there is in cup these days it’s not even close that is a problem but right now there’s no clear way to fix that unfortunately but that’s not to take away from the many very talented young drivers

Currently racing in those series anyway moving on Ryan Vargas has been a NASCAR exfinity and truck series regular the past few years today he made a huge announcement with NASCAR making more International plays there’s talk about bringing the cup series to either Canada Mexico or both next year the Canada

Series was just rebranded there’s a Brazil series now they just took garage 56 to lont and received much fanfare International expansion is very much on NASCAR’s mind Ryan Vargas has some interesting thoughts and an interesting perspective to give on the topic let’s bring him in

Now I am now joined by Ryan Vargas Ryan it’s great to see you’ve got some exciting announcements the past couple days how you doing man man it’s good I’m coming to you from uh Las Vegas uh working on an Infinity car so if you hear a airplane going around that’s that

You kind of know where I’m at uh well you’ve got a lot of cool things you’re working on obviously I talked to you a little bit about day or at Daytona about um your extensive upcoming travel plans we’ll get to that in just a moment but first and foremost yesterday you

Surprised us all you’re back in the exfinity series this weekend at Phoenix what’s the excitement level uh at to be uh back racing on Saturday man you know uh it’s pretty neat um it was really cool to get the opportunity from the 32 team uh just

Pumped to be back behind the wheel and XFinity um you know this is what you want as a race car driver right this is why you have a license this is why you do what you do and why I work as hard as I do is so that you know I can these

Opportunities so I’m very thankful to these guys and excited to get going back at back at Phoenix yeah that’s awesome excited to see what you can do with the Jordan Anderson racing they’re their number 32 car this weekend that’s awesome but the bigger story Ryan I think bigger picture today you announced

You’re running full-time in the Euro NASCAR series with 3F racing I know a lot of fans watching at home including myself don’t know a whole lot about uh NASCAR’s European league so I guess to start start off what does a full-time Euro NASCAR schedule look like man well seven different countries uh seven

Different types of racetracks they added an oval there is an oval again on the schedule uh in at Raceway ven R so yeah there’s oval racing in Europe uh fantastic facility there too I got to see some video and photo um but no it’s a it’s a very exciting schedule you know

Have tracks like FR hatch solder austar schen uh and so many more incredible places and historic facilities that you could take Nas Park stock parks on hear fly overhead but um now it’s a it’s a really cool opportunity and I’m just pumped to be able to go travel the world

Uh represent you know critical paat security and 3F racing um on a whole different scale you know what I mean it’s NASCAR racing you know at a very pure and uh exciting level you kind of touched on it there but what else about this series is so appealing to an

American race car driver like yourself well you know it’s just opportunity right you know I looked at you know I looked at my schedule this year I looked at everything I had you know I got with critical path we obviously ran those two races last year in Germany and Belgium and after talking

With them you know we were just like man this this Euros series deal was very beneficial you know I was able to go out there I was able to hone in my racecraft behind the wheel um get better on road courses compared to some of my very talented teammates out there um the

Sponsor critical path they absolutely loved the coverage that they got and uh just getting out of that you know we we sat down and said you know this might be something we want to do you know it like it maybe a little bit more different than what we inti initially uh thought

We would want to do um but I mean I’m 23 I get to travel the world and I get to raise NASCAR stock cars on very cool RAC trcks um I love it I think that this was probably the best move I could have made I mean it was either that or continue

Doing the same thing where I kind of get a ride here get a ride there you know now I could focus on building a program and really uh honing in my craft over a season yeah and and what I want to talk about is is NASCAR’s sort of

International push recently and I think it’s cool that you in in many ways get to potentially be kind of the face of that uh movement because the Euro NASCAR series isn’t all that old it’s been around what like 10 15 years something like that and recently we’ve seen

Between you know garage 56 at Lama they’ve added you know the Brazil series like NASCAR is clearly making an international p so I guess why do you think it’s so important for NASCAR to establish a strong International presence well I mean you know when you hear NASCAR right you think oh USA USA

Which absolutely is NASCAR is I I put it up there with baseball and cheeseburgers you know I mean it’s you know it’s it’s a very American sport but at the same time if you look at the global appeal of the sport I mean we I went to the

Germany race that place was hacked and it wasn’t just people showing up not really knowing what they were seeing there was guys wearing Dale Jr jackets Kyle bus jackets there were diecast uh retailers there were people selling NASCAR merch there were people have selling corn dogs and a guy singing

Country music it felt like I was at a NASCAR race wow and so so many fans overseas in Europe want NASCAR racing they are excited about NASCAR RAC and they love the culture they love the excitement of V8 stock cars you know hustling around these road courses so I

Think being able to kind of be someone who can go out there represent the SP and represent you know kind of what Nascar is all about and be able to put it more on a being able to use my more American platform to kind of show hey

Europe wants NASCAR I think that’s gonna be a big a big thing for NASCAR to kind of look at hopefully and see yeah this might be something where we can you know Implement more uh activation overseas yeah absolutely uh I mean everyone thinks of you European racing they think

Formula 1 they think about the World Endurance Championship but NASCAR stock car racing is making strides there you kind of touched on it but you know maybe the answer is not much but my next question was how do na american Nascar fans differ from European stock car

Racing fans at least from what you’ve seen so far not much I I mean when I did um when I did Germany um I had fans coming up to the to the paddock it’s it’s a paddock over there takes them getting used to yeah some of them brought some of my

Inity hard cards not hard cards uh hero cards to sign and I was like how did you get this so I mean it’s just like how it is here you know they’re excited I have people over there that are making diecasts of my Infinity Cars and Trucks

You know just to bring them to the track and have me sign you know it’s it’s no different really their justest is excited if not more in some ways I mean it it was insane to see just how how much people got excited seeing these

Cars and the best part too is the Euros series every week they do a a parade through the town the local town where the racetracks at right so we’ll take the race cars down the Main Street and you’ll see families and kids lined up with the little American flags and

They’re all excited to see NASCAR uh take to the streets of their Hometown and in a place where there isn’t isn’t stock car race so I think that’s really cool so Ryan you’ve run exfinity you’ve run trucks last season U but now you’re going overseas I’m sure many fans will

Will wonder like what’s that change going to be like for you you know how how dramatic of a career move is this for a young driver in your position yeah I mean it’s very dramatic obviously you know I’m G to be you know uprooting a

Good portion of my year and doing it in a country in countries that I’ve never been to in cars that I’ve hardly driven and working with people that I’m just barely met um so that’s going to be a very interesting you know thing for me to learn it’s going to be a very

Interesting challenge for me to learn but that’s why I do it it’s because I want that challenge right you know you could look at all these things and it’s like at the end of the day you know I’m 23 years old I’m going to be able to go

And travel and race internationally and represent my partners represent my teams in an effective way that’s gonna grow what I’m trying to do grow my footprint you know help me as a driver learn new skill sets that I probably never would have had so um it’s very exciting to get

The chance to go run overseas and I couldn’t be more excited about just getting back in the race car uh and trying uh and trying new things yeah well uh I’ll be watching I’ll be rooting for you because I believe all Euro NASCAR races are streamed on YouTube I

Believe I I saw that somewhere which is awesome that’s great so uh I’m sure I’ll be I know I’ll be checking it out and I’m sure a lot of other fans will be as well Ryan Vargas thank you so much for being on the show very exciting announcement good luck this weekend I

Guess I’ll see you out at Phoenix but also good luck overseas the rest of this season I appreciate it thank you hope hope all the fans uh tune in uh throughout the season h huge thank you to Ryan Vargas for coming on the show leave a like if you enjoyed subscribe to

The channel if you’re new and you love all things NASCAR and as always a huge thank you to my very generous patreon supporters I will see you all at Phoenix Raceway this weekend Friday and Saturday to be specific 300 p.m. on Friday 12:30 p.m. on Saturday come see me and Brenan

P will be doing a live podcast recording just outside the track at the NASCAR Experience stage hope to see you there thanks for watching folks I’ll catch you in the next episode Good