Chris Rice is facing a certain degree of cognitive dissonance over the topic of granting Chase for the Championship waivers to Truck Series drivers that have missed races.
The president of Kaulig Racing says he has asked for a waiver to make Corey Lajoie eligible for the 10-driver championship. The inner conflict came when he was asked on SiriusXM's The Morning Drive about the potential of Tricon Garage's Corey Heim applying for a waiver since he's leading the standings despite missing two races and not being championship eligible as a result.
"Oh boy, we just asked for one for Corey Lajoie so if I say no, that might mess me up," Rice said with a laugh.
But it's complicated because Heim being championship eligible would also make it harder for Lajoie to reach the top-10 in the standings by the end of the regular season.
Heim's case is actually more straightforward. He missed two races but elected to receive Truck points at the start of the season, even in not intending to chase the championship. Lajoie elected to receive Cup Series points at the start of the season in racing the Daytona 500 for RFK Racing.
Lajoie made two previous Truck Series starts at Daytona and Atlanta while he was registered to receive Cup Series points. Rice also asked NASCAR to retroactively include those points in his tally but that part was immediately denied.
"So (now) we're asking, 'Hey, he's going to run the rest of the year (and) give us a shot to be able to go to make the playoffs with a driver,'" Rice said.
At a minimum, the No. 10 truck that Lajoie is going to race the rest of the season after taking over for the departed Daniel Dye is owner's championship eligible, and is currently 12th in those standings. Rice just wants the chance for Lajoie to make the top-10.
Lajoie is currently 84 points out with 13 races to go.
Anyway, Rice initially took the view that drivers needed to commit to the series to begin accumulating points. The producer, Sam Agee, then took up the stance that if a driver scored enough points to make the Chase for the Championship, that was done on merit and shouldn't require a waiver.
"That's a good point," Rice said. "Like, we have a totally different (championship format) than we've had forever ... Now we're racing for points throughout the year."
