Possible changes for Qualifing in 2005

E

Eagle1

Guest
Claire B. Lang: I'm hearing in the garage about possible changes in qualifying procedures next year. Will there be a change?


John Darby

John Darby: Well, we're talking about a lot of things, Claire, and as we go down the road and understand that one of NASCAR's functions is to participate in the ongoing efforts of somehow trying to control some of the spending or some of the cost that all of our owners incur, as it relates to a race team and what it takes to operate that race team throughout a Nextel Cup season.

One of the things that's been a hot topic, and we've invested a lot of time in, is looking at how much labor and money is spent strictly on qualifying, through specialized parts and pieces that are lighter and weaker, and special transmissions and rear-end gears and lubrication fluids for the rear end and the transmission and the engine, and so on, and understanding that, at the end of qualifying, although ultimately that's what formulates the race lineup, nobody receives any big checks for qualifying. So, when you start to really look closely at our whole qualifying process, you come away with a feeling of, "Why is all the trouble worth the trouble?"

In today's world, teams literally rebuild the cars from front to rear after qualifying in preparation for the race. And the race is what's most important; that's what everybody's there to see. That's what pays the big money, that's what awards the championship points and everything else, so we need qualifying to determine a race lineup, but we also need to maybe look at strongly how we change our formats in doing that. So going forward into 2005, there's a very strong potential that we will impound the Nextel Cup cars at numerous events for 2005. How the lineup is done beyond that comes as a product of impounding the cars.

If we're asking the majority of the garage to qualify in what I'm going to term as their "race setup" ... in other words, have the car set up the way you're going to run it in Sunday's race and qualify. That type of a setup is appreciably slower than if a team was to come in with a full-blown qualifying setup. So we've looked at a way to put a comfort into the garage area for the number of teams that are going to try to do it the right way.

One of the things we're kicking around -- and you can look at this procedure two ways -- is either no provisionals, or we're going to award 35. And basically it's pretty simple: the top 35 in points would ultimately be reassured of one of the 43 starting positions, and the remaining 8 positions would be filled strictly from speed from those that are outside the 43. It's a very simple format; there's a lot of emphasis on performance throughout the year to maintain that top-35 status, and the teams that are outside the top 35, they'll have to get up on their game a little bit and actually qualify by speed and ultimately we'll have the fastest cars in the race at the end of the day.

So those are just some new thoughts that we're kicking around right now. We don't have anything written on paper. We're not ready to drop the hammer on it, although we are pretty close in some of our negotiations on both the impounding format and the new qualifying procedures. When we do finalize and make those changes, we'll obviously let the world know.

Taken off of Nascar .Com
 
I like the qualifing in race setup. I don't like guaranteing the top 35 a place in the line up. ALL 43 spots should be fastest cars race the rest go home. Clear cut and simple.

Most of the teams trying to get into these races are very low budget teams because they don't have the big sponsers Most of the ones that do show up with a sponsers name on the car are barely getting enough to letter the car much less throw big dollars at it to sit out big teams.
NASCAR also needs to keep the sport healthy by letting small startup teams have an honest shot at making the races. That is the only way you are going to keep the cart counts up and full fields running every week.

My point of view is the top tier teams are getting 20 mil a year to be the best teams out there. The lower leval teams are getting around 10 mil a year to run their teams and the teams in between are getting between those amounts depending what level they're running at.

Now if a team getting 20 million dollars a year can't make their car faster than the guy trying to run a low budget team on 1 or 2 million a year by golly they need to go home and park it cause they're certainly misspending their cash. Maybe they should quit building these 300 - 400 million dollar shops and put it into parts, personal, testing etc.
 
I like the impounding the cars after qualifying.....that, to me, would really indicate who the fastest cars would be for the race in question. It would also do away with "happy hour". :) But I'm confused or fail to see the advantage of the top 35 being automatically in the race. The top 35 changes, especially in the beginning of the season............that's fine. But how do they line up? 1st in points goes the inside poll and 35th goes to inside row 18? Is that how Darby is outlining it? That don't work in mind. Now if they race for positions 1 through 35 and line up according to the times they turn in works...........but I see a flaw!! :D The positions 36 through 43 are racing under a different set of rules..........they are racing to get in and they have no guarantee of racing like the top 35. Say there are 50 cars showing up for the race and that means 7 cars will be going home. What happens if 7 of those cars that are out of the top 35 run faster times than, say 33rd, 34th, and 35th in points? Do those top 35 in points still get in and bump the faster cars out of the race because the top 35 cars have a guarantee?

Boy, oh boy!! This place will really light up if that's the case!! :XXROFL:
 
I didn't do a very good job of wording that post!! :( I even edited it to try to say what I meant..........man, it's been a long day!! :) What I was trying to point out is as an example: Using the points we have right now..........what happens if a couple or 7 of those drivers out of the top in points beat the drivers within the top 35 in points who turn in times that would place them 33rd, 34th, and 35th because of their guarantee? Those 33rd, 34th, and 35th could be Jimmy Johnson, Kurt Bucsh, and Jeff Gordon.............do they bump those faster car out of the race because of the guarantee? Sounds to me like some very fast cars with a reasonable chance of winning will be going home simply because NASCAR has a guarantee for some!! :blink:

Did I make sense? I know what I'm thinking................I think!! :wacko:
 
Well you tried DE_W. LOL I think I understand you.

The way I understand it is the top 35 will get in no matter what their time or even if they wreck and I don't like that.

It doesn't matter to me if it's Terry LaBonte, Tony Stewart, Robbie Gorden, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Jr or who ever, you make the field on time, or go home.
I believe you'd see teams and drivers opporating quite differently and being much more cautious with setups and gearing to guarentee getting in. If the car is so bad they wreck while qualifing they'd have wrecked in the race. We just saved a caution and some innocent cars being taken out at the same time.

I think it would make it better for the smaller teams. Many times this year we've seen the little guys sent home when they have qualified faster than some of the top 35.

The guys in the twilte of there careers, like DW a couple years ago need to make the race on speed too. It is not good having cars out there running 15-20 mph slower than the rest of the pack, and that has happened several times this year too and much faster cars got loaded up and sent home.

If they can't make the Cup field, maybe they should look at Trucks or ARCA.
 
And another thing, I think this will bring accountability to these teams and drivers. If a big team don't make the field, they'll have to explain to their sponsers on Monday why they didn't.
Also, it would take a lot of the seat of the pants driving out of the equation, if they wreck it they go home.
If they're not allowed special qually setups I believe this will also help put the independents and small teams on a more even playing field. That's quite a lot of money spent each week that the independents can't afford.
 
Would they possibly run happy hour on saturday morning and qualify saturday afternoon?. I like the idea of more practice time in a race setup. this may help the teams dial in a race setup instead of scrambling in happy hour to get it right.
As far as locking in the top 35, I don't know if I care for that. If you got a fast car you should have a decent shot at getting in the race.
 
Two day race weekend. Practice Saturday morning---twice, maybe. Qualify Saturday afternoon. Impound the cars until race starts Sunday noon----or whatever time adjustments need to be made for a night race.

Leave the qualifying on time and provisionals as is.

That will bring back the feel of the old track racing---seat of the pants and the drivers skill are back in focus, instead of car setup and expensive parts.

An added bonus is that crews and drivers are less stressed---things get to be fun again---burnout is reduced---drivers might stay around a bit longer.
 
New qualifying procedures will likely be in place at more than half the races on the 2005 Nextel Cup schedule, including a guarantee that the top 35 teams in the car owners' points would get a starting spot in each week's event. Nextel Cup Series director John Darby confirmed Friday that Nextel Cup is heading toward a process used several times this year in the Busch Series, where cars are impounded by NASCAR after qualifying and would then start the race with the same set-up they had for the time trials. "That would allow the teams to have one focus per weekend," Darby said. "They would leave the shop in race set-up, then unload at the track and qualify and race with the car in race trim." Currently, Nextel Cup teams practice and then make two-lap qualifying runs on Fridays in a typical race weekend. They then change their cars dramatically before a running a pair of Saturday morning practices the way their cars will be for Sunday's race. Darby said the "ideal" schedule for 2005 would be Friday afternoon practices with Cup qualifying at midday Saturday preceding a Busch or Truck series support race. Cup cars would be impounded after qualifying and teams would be able to make only slight adjustments - air pressure in tires, for instance - before the green flag on Sunday.
There other major change in qualifying rules would be in effect at all tracks, however. The top 35 cars in owner points would be guaranteed a starting spot to protect teams running full schedules from being bumped by part-time teams who show up in qualifying mode to make a race with no regard of how that car would do in the race. There were 50 cars entered in this weekend's Checker 500 at Phoenix. Under the new set-up, the top 35 in points would be guaranteed spots. The other 15 cars would compete for the remaining eight slots [a heat race would be cool]. The field would still be lined up based on speed. But if the eighth fastest car not in the 35 in points had the 29th best speed, positions 30 through 43 would be filled by cars in the top 35, ranked by speed, even if the ninth best car among those not in the top 35 went faster.(ThatsRacin.com
 
Well that clears it up about like the Mississippi in Spring!!! :blink: It appears that the top 35 in points will run time trials but I'm still not sure. If it's what I think it is, it might work.......but I still don't know how the cars will line up for the start of the races!! Let's say the points leader runs a really crappy qualifying lap and winds up dead last in speed.........one of the part timers shows up with a Ryan Newman impersonation and blows the field away!! Where does the part timer start and where does the top in points start? I'm still confused. :(
 
Originally posted by DE_Wrangler_2@Nov 6 2004, 12:54 PM
Well that clears it up about like the Mississippi in Spring!!! :blink: It appears that the top 35 in points will run time trials but I'm still not sure. If it's what I think it is, it might work.......but I still don't know how the cars will line up for the start of the races!! Let's say the points leader runs a really crappy qualifying lap and winds up dead last in speed.........one of the part timers shows up with a Ryan Newman impersonation and blows the field away!! Where does the part timer start and where does the top in points start? I'm still confused. :(
Click to expand...
:cheers: :cheers: Yup, Clear as the Mississippi in the spring. LOL
 
Let’s try this and see how it looks. We’ll take 50 cars vying for a spot in a race. We will number them 1 thru 50 as to the order of their points. So, let’s say they qualified in the following order, keeping in mind, the numbers used are their points in the standings.

1. fastest, 10
2. next, 4
3. then, 2
4. 22
5. 14
6. 1
7. 5
8. 44
9. 35
10. 21
11. 13
12. 25
13. 36
14. 18
15. 6
16. 8
17. 16
18. 7
19. 29
20. 38
21. 11
22. 42
23. 31
24. 17
25. 12
26. 19
27. 26
28. 32
29. 20
30. 30
31. 27
32. 37
33. 41
34. 24
35. 39
36. 34
37. 40
38. 20
39. 50
40. 28
41. 23
42. 15
43. 49
44. 45
45. 46
46. 47
47. 48
48. 33
49. 3, dnq
50. 9, dnq

Okay, since the top 35 will be guaranteed a spot, that would mean that #9 would be in the 43rd starting spot with #3 in 42nd and #33 in the 41st spot. #15 would be 40th, #23 in 39th, #28 in 38th and #20 in the 37th position leaving #34 for the 36th spot, thus the lineup would be as such…
1. 10
2. 4
3. 2
4. 22
5. 14
6. 1
7. 5
8. 44
9. 35
10. 21
11. 13
12. 25
13. 36
14. 18
15. 6
16. 8
17. 16
18. 7
19. 29
20. 38
21. 11
22. 42
23. 31
24. 17
25. 12
26. 19
27. 26
28. 32
29. 20
30. 30
31. 27
32. 37
33. 41
34. 24
35. 39
36. 34
37. 20
38. 28
39. 23
40. 15
41. 33
42. 3
43. 9

Those going home would be #’s 50, 49, 48, 47, 46, 45, and 40. This would allow everyone to qualify for the pole and allow the top 35 to keep their starting positions, leaving the last 8 spots open for anyone out of the top 35 to make the race.
 
If that's the way Darby explained it then I can see it working........though my jury is still out on it! Problem is, I don't know if that's the way it's going to work. What Buck did is pretty much what I had in my mind............I just ain't sure that's what Darby said. :(
 
I can understand how you're thinking because some of the things they have done pretty much boggles the imagination. However, I can't see it going any other way, but that doesn't mean much. :)
 
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