A lot of debate, cussing and discussing has taken place this season over the issue of qualifying for a NNCS race. If your favorite team is inside the top 35, no worries. Outside the top 35, the stress is massive for teams and drivers to make the cut. This week at Indy, there are 51 teams expected to qualify. Why not? The payout at Indy is among the highest of the season. In order to insure his 55 car is in the show, Michael Waltrip will once again step aside and allow past champion, Terry Lebonte to run the NAPA Toyota. Labonte will be the most recent past champion and will thus insure the 55 is in the show regardless of his lap speed.
What is the answer? How can we be fair to every competitor and give the fans the best show? How about those all important sponsors and the pressure they put on teams to be in every race? Is it fair to say that NAPA, UPS, RED BULL, to name a few, are getting their money’s worth? all good questions, you say? But, Grumpy do you have a better idea?
Yes I do! Scrap the current system and do away with all provisionals, period. Set the field with the 43 fastest qualifiers, end of story. The NHRA does it that way. The fastest 16 qualifiers make the show for Sunday. The rest go home. Sounds harsh, you say? On a number of occasions, the reigning champion has failed to qualify for an event. You know what, the fans got a good show anyway. I was at Las Vegas when Warren Johnson failed to make the show. The world continued to rotate.
OK, lets say that NASCAR will not take that step, fearing a huge backlash from top teams and sponsors. Plan B: run the qualifying round as usual. Lock in the top 20 teams. Line up the rest of the field for a 50 lap consey race. Some tracks might have a shorter race length. A win-win situation. The TV networks get a short race to show live. The sponsors get some screen time even if they don’t make the Sunday race. The young drivers and teams get some seat time to improve with. Perhaps NASCAR could assign a lesser point value to the consey so those teams can earn a few points as the season goes. Something to ponder.
Grumpy
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