America, Fvck Yeah! NASCAR Won't Require COVID Vaccinations

NASCAR won't consider mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for those involved with the sport, the sport's president Steve Phelps said over the weekend, calling the idea of making it a requirement a "slippery slope."

"It is important, in my opinion, that people get vaccinated," Phelps said before the race at Talladega Superspeedway. "We will continue to monitor and change our policy as necessary in order to make sure that people are safe. We are certainly monitoring. I won’t get into the numbers specifically, but the number of people who are in this garage that have been vaccinated continues to steadily rise."

This is a different policy than those being implemented by the NBA, NHL and IndyCar, which are putting pressure on their athletes and drivers to become vaccinated. But NASCAR doesn't even conduct testing for the virus.

"As it relates to the driver core, I think you’ll probably see more and more, and we’ll ask the drivers frankly to try to promote the vaccination process," Phelps said. "They have a voice. That voice carries a lot of weight.

"To the degree that we can help with folks who are uncertain about whether they want to get the vaccine, I think it would be critical to have those with the loudest voice within the sport talking about their vaccinations."