Designated Driver Rule?

[labontebrothersfan]

What do you guys think of the "Designated Driver" idea.

Rather than making an injured driver - like Dale Jarrett - get right back in the card & drive hurt, permit a designated driver for a limited number of races?

That would give an injured driver a couple weeks to rest up. Would allow him to keep the points earned by the designated driver - thereby keeping championship hopes alive! Keep the injured driver from further hurting himself - or hurting someone else.

I think it would be a great idea to allow a designated driver for 2 to 3 races a season.

[Rumor]

Unfortunately, it will probably never see the light of day in the Nascar series because there probably would be griping with the drivers who race all the time and aren't sick or injured. Can't make everyone happy I guess.

Bobby Labonte quit racing in BGN after his injury a couple years ago, and had to miss one race as a result of the injury. The DD may have helped him in the standings had they been able to do this.

Interestingly though, this came up in the F1 race this weekend.

Heinz-Harold Frentzen crashed two weeks ago at their last race and complained of dizziness and headaches. He felt he was well enough to compete in this weekends race. He crashed in practice and suffered the dizziness and headaches again. He, and the team, took him out of the race and sent him back to his homeland to be checked over, and they put in their backup driver for this race. Some of the teams do have a designated driver for cases like this.

I don't know who would have gotten the points if the backup driver finished in a points position though.