Anyway, it's the Daytona 500 weekend right now, which mean's the racing world turns it's attention to NASCAR. I plan on writing more about the 500 in the days to come, but I'd like to start with a discussion on the current NASCAR qualifying mess. The Daytona 500 group qualifying fiasco was over a week ago, but better late then never. Right?
I'm going to assume that most of you are aware of what happened, because I'm probably the only person in the world still trying to write about Daytona qualifying, but I've got column space to fill, so let's recap real fast. NASCAR tried group qualifying at Daytona for the first time this year, and the results were...not good. I normally don't watch race qualifying on TV (I may be The Racing Nerd, but I'm not The Racing Nerd Who Has Nothing Better To Do with His Life), so I won't pretend to be an expert on how group qualifying for NASCAR worked at every track last year, but from what I understand, the problems with group qualifying at Daytona has everything to do with the draft. At Daytona, if you want to be the fast guy, you want to be the guy at the back of the line, letting someone else punch a hole in the air for you. That means the first guy out of the pit is like the first guy off the boat in Saving Private Ryan, it just doesn't end well for him. So, if your clever, you leave the pit's last. Unfortunately, everyone else has the same idea, so everyone waits for someone else to leave first. Basically everyone is sitting around going "you leave first."
"No, you leave first."
"No you leave first."
It reminded me of a really annoying couple I knew in highschool who turned hanging up the phone into a three act play.
Back on topic. So, everyone leaves the pit at the same time and is trying to qualify in a pack. We've all watched restrictor plate races before, and we know what happens when guys are pushing hard in a pack? If you answered "wrecks," give yourself a cookie because that's exactly what happened at Daytona. Needless to say, drivers weren't happy when their primary car was wrecked by someone else's stupidity.
Honestly, I don't blame NASCAR for trying group qualifying. Ultimately, any racing series is a business, and NASCAR needs to find ways to make money, and trying to add excitement with group qualifying (which makes it a more attractive product for TV), as opposed to single car qualifying, seemed like some awfully easy, low hanging fruit. Too bad the idea didn't work. Single car qualifying may not have the excitement of wheel-to-wheel racing, but at least you're guaranteed to see stuff on the track, as opposed to group qualifying where you see a traffic jam on pit road followed by everyone trying to cram in a flying lap at the last possible second.
What I find surprising is that NASCAR didn't see this coming. From what I understand, the same thing happened at Talladega last year. Heck, I personally saw the same thing happen at Texas last year when the NASCAR trucks tried group qualifying for the first time. Did NASCAR seriously think that the teams wouldn't try and draft to gain a qualifying advantage?
 |
| View of the pit road during NASCAR truck qualify at Texas Motor Speedway in July 2014. Like Yogi Bera said, it's deja vu all over again. |
In any kind of group qualifying, track position is important, but doubly so on a speedway where a guy can get a tow to gain speed. NASCAR has already tweaked the group qualifying format to try and prevent a repeat of the qualifying we saw last week, but I have a simpler solution. Go back to single car qualifying. I just don't think group qualifying can be made to work on ovals.
No comments:
Post a Comment