Race Weekend Central

Kickin’ The Tires: Knockout Qualifying Takes A Beating From Top Drivers

Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson may like knockout qualifying for the Daytona 500, but those sentiments were not shared by most of their colleagues in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage.

Gordon will lead the field to the green in his last-ever start in the sport’s biggest race – a scenario that couldn’t have been scripted better if left up to Hollywood producers. At his side will be his teammate, Johnson, making it an all-Hendrick front row on Sunday. But the car on the outside pole is partially-owned by Gordon, so does that make it an all-Gordon front row?

Gordon_Johnson_PoleWinD500
Are these the only people happy about Daytona 500 qualifying? (Credit: Jerry Jordan)

Seriously, Gordon deserves kudos for his performance but even he admitted being stressed out.

“This is one I’ve been stressing about for a while,” he said. “This format is crazy and chaotic.  It can be extremely rewarding when you have a day like we had, to bring that kind of group effort together.

“In the past, this has been one of the easiest days I’ve had all day long.  Go out there, hold it wide open, run a couple laps. It’s all about the team, the car, all the preparation they put into it.  All that hard work still goes into this effort, but I play a bigger role, the spotter plays a bigger role. There’s just so much more strategy in trying to play this chess match and the time game, the wait gameIt just becomes really intense.”

For Gordon, knockout qualifying may have been intense, crazy or chaotic but three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion, Tony Stewart, called it “a complete embarrassment” on Twitter. Stewart, who has more than 336,000 followers, rarely takes to social media – just 216 tweets, so far but, on Sunday, he might as well have tossed a grenade into the NASCAR bunker and he wasn’t the worst of the bunch.

“Today used to be about showcasing the hard work from the teams over the winter,” Stewart wrote. “Now, it’s a complete embarrassment for our series. #NASCAR

Clint Bowyer, who was wrecked in the first qualifying session, laid blame directly on NASCAR’s shoulders, saying qualifying for the 2015 Daytona 500 was nothing more than a “cute show.”

“First of all, I wasn’t behind the 44 (Reed Sorenson), he came flying around and came up on the apron, jumped up in front of me and then runs over the 51 (Justin Allgaier), stacks us all up and I run into him,” he ranted. “It’s idiotic to be out here doing this anyway. It makes no sense in being able to put on some cute show for whatever the hell this is, then you have a guy out there in desperation doing this crap like this. There’s no reason to be out here. These guys have spent six months working on these cars, busting their asses on these cars to go out there and have some guy out of desperation do that crap, but it ain’t his fault. It’s not, it’s NASCAR’s fault for putting us out here in the middle of this crap for nothing. We used to come down here and worry about who was going to sit on the front row and the pole for the biggest race of the year and now all we do is come down here and worry about how a start-and-park like this out of desperation is going to knock us out of the Daytona 500. We’ve been in meetings for 45 minutes just trying to figure out what in the hell everybody is going to do just so we can make the race. There’s no sense in doing this.

“It wasn’t his fault, he’s desperate and trying to get into the biggest race of the year. We need to be focused on qualifying and who is going to sit on the pole for the biggest race of the year and the front row just like we always have. There’s no reason to be putting a show on and trying to make something out of something that doesn’t need to be. We put a hell of a show on for the Daytona 500 and unfortunately these guys have worked the last six months for nothing.”

From relative-rookies Austin Dillon and Kyle Larson to veterans Jamie McMurray and Kurt Busch, there weren’t too many drivers happy, except Gordon and Johnson. In fact, the criticism was so loud, NASCAR took notice.

“We don’t want to see wrecks of any kind,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Chief Racing Development Officer. “Not lost on us is how much work goes into these cars by the teams, the efforts for our biggest race of the year. I close by saying I believe we’ve got a really good track record of making adjustments where we need to, so we’ll certainly evaluate what took place today, we’ll continue to get feedback from the industry, from the drivers as we did to get to where we were today.”

In its defense, NASCAR wants to make things exciting. Let’s face it; single-car qualifying is long, boring and akin to watching paint dry at a superspeedway. However, what we saw Sunday at Daytona, with cars sitting idle and playing the waiting game on pit road, didn’t represent the roots of the sport.

Hey, Daytona, we have a problem. One thing NASCAR got right, though was the decision to not penalize the drivers for voicing their opinion. Hopefully, the same holds true for media. It’s too late to fix it for the 2015 Daytona 500 but NASCAR, please get with the drivers and anyone else wanting to toss in their two-cents and reach a consensus on how to best set the field for the biggest race of the year. If not, then expect harsher criticism next year.

Editor’s Note: We welcome Jerry Jordan as our newest Frontstretch contributor this season! Jerry can also be found at his own NASCAR site, kickinthetires.net

About the author

Jerry Jordan, is a two-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) award-winning writer covering the world of NASCAR. He is the founder, editor and radio host of Kickin' the Tires, which is a motorsports media outlet focusing primarily on NASCAR.
The goal is to bring visitors a behind-the-scenes look at what's happening in the sport of NASCAR through the printed word, in pictures and with audio from the who's who of NASCAR.
Each week, Jordan's award-winning Kickin' the Tires syndicated column is featured first at Frontstretch.com, and then published in print publications covering Southeast Texas and on the Kickin' the Tires Web site.

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Ex Fan Bad Wolf

I was reminded today why I gave up on NASCAR years ago. I turned on qualifying today for background while I was getting some office work done, and could not believe that someone thought turning qualifying at Daytona into a cutesy gimmicky “Show” was a good idea. Even head NASCAR cheerleader suck up Dee Double You had to put down the pom poms and back peddle all of his gushing praise of Brian Frances new scheme after it blew up in their faces.

They did nothing to get me to come back and watch NASCAR with their latest feeble attempt at juicing up the “Show” in an attempt to get Taylor Swift fans to tune in and bump the ratings.

The cars still have not one shred of “Stock” in them.
The “Chase” is a gimmick that is past it’s expiration date.
Durrel Waltrip is still in the booth.
Brian France is the “Tommy Boy” of NASCAR
The drivers have been turned into marketing shills for the sponsors.
Multi Car teams still rule.

I have seen all I need to see, and NASCAR will still not be on my weekend schedule.

Bruce

Who’s brainwave was this? Sure the old system of qualifying was boring for non-race fans but people who have waited all winter for racing to start it was a great couple hours. NASCAR has replaced ninety minutes of driver and car with less than ten minutes of “cute”. They banned tandem racing and replaced it with team qualifying. The owner that can line up the most cars wins, single car teams are at the mercy of the big guys. NASCAR wants to put on a show to get people to watch how many people will drive to the track to watch race cars idle in pit lane? For that matter how long will TV put on an hour show for ten minutes of content. One last piece of advice for NASCAR, yes you are not half bad at correcting mistakes you make but how about thinking through some of these hair brained ideas before you implement them.

Robert Eastman

Daytona in February and for race fans it’s time to wake out of our winter-hibernation because life in the fast-lane of Hollywood scripted NASCAR has just begun. Though I got to see Matt win Saturday night, I missed Sunday’s “Big Show.” It didn’t really matter because I already knew who would win the pole even before a wheel turned on Sunday. All I had to do was ask myself… “what is the biggest story going into this new season?” Two years ago it was “Danica”… she won the pole. Last year it was the return of the #3… it sat on the pole. This year it’s all about Jeff Gordon’s retirement… Guess Who’s sitting on the Daytona 500 pole!?!

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