Daytona 500 Owner Points Swap Gets Confusing

TRG Motorsports announced Saturday morning it would enter Andy Lally in the Daytona 500.

↵Easy enough, right? Lally is a veteran who has won the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway three times, and since TRG’s No. 71 team finished in the top 35 in owner points last season, Lally is guaranteed a starting spot in the 500.

↵Actually, that’s incorrect. It’s not so simple after all.

↵As it turns out, a former TRG partner named Thomas Pumpelly “divested himself” from the organization and took the owner points with him to Richard Childress Racing, where he is now technically listed as the “owner” of Paul Menard’s No. 27 team (RCR said it would have no further comment on the issue).

↵Since the No. 71 no longer had owner points, the organization went and got Menard’s old No. 98 points at Richard Petty Motorsports. The team said Saturday morning that it has “partnered” with Petty.

↵Did you follow all that?

↵If you didn’t, this is the basic point: NASCAR continues to allow teams to buy their way into the Daytona 500 and into the first five races of the season by conducting behind-the-scenes owner point swaps.

↵Many of the “owners” have no control over the operation of the team – they simply received a nice payday for their points. In fact, Sirius Radio’s Dave Moody reported the Wood Brothers acquired the former No. 19 team’s points, meaning George Gillett is now technically the owner of the No. 21 car.

↵For some reason, NASCAR is OK with this. We’re not sure why, but this embarrassing practice is clearly continuing in 2011.