Honestly, when it comes to progression, no one should take vague comments seriously.
Citation of numbers are what matters. How many races/challenges needed to gain X amount of points, and how many X points are needed to level up, etc.
Tldr; it's really on the consumers to test the game for themselves to see if Rushy is being honest on his stance of game-design or is he bullshitting us by simply not calling cash tokens.
The good thing is that with the PS+ demo, everyone should be able to at least test out for free how DC functions at that level.