Top 35 rule

J

jeefunk

Guest
On the postrace show on PRN, they were discussing the rule guaranteeing starting spots to the top 35 in owners' points. One gentleman called in and said to do away with the top 35, another said to make it only the top 12 who are guaranteed since that's how many make the Chase. I thought that was a little extreme, but I think they are on the right track, no pun intended.

Here's my thought:

IMO, the original idea of guaranteeing starting spots is to keep all the "major" full-time teams from getting ousted by part-timers, or possibly missing one race flooded with part-time teams and eventually costing them a shot at the championship, making the top 10, etc. In other words, a guy wouldn't have his season plan ruined because 20 part-time teams were trying to qualify for the Brickyard 400 (or any other race, just used that one as an example).

Well, now, for the first time in my memory, the number of full-time teams outnumbers the number of starting spots for a given race, which partially defeats the purpose of having the guaranteed starting spots. IMO, I think they should lower the number of guaranteed starting spots to either 25 or 30 simply because there are SO MANY teams deserving of a starting spot some weeks who get ousted because of the guy in 34th (again, just an example number) in owner points had a crap qualifying run, but gets his guaranteed spot because he's TWO spots ahead 36th, even though the guy in 36th may be a ton better that day.

Just wondering what some other people's thoughts were. I've seen some great ideas about stuff in here, hoping to see some more :cool:
 
You are close to the reason for the top 35, but again, think money. The reason for the top 35 is so that they will be able to satisfy the sponsors. But as has been said, the number of full time teams does exceed 35 and that is a new problem.

I don't agree with this rule either and for my money, I think that there should only be 4 or 5 provisionals for each race, but again, those spots were put there in case one of the better teams had a problem in qualifying. Along with the technology came the high price of running a team and along with that came huge sponsorships. We've entered a new realm of autoracing these days and it all boils down to who has the most bucks and uses them wisely.

Maybe only three provs per race.
 
i say no guaranteed spots. If a sponser wants exposure, their team better make the race.
 
This article gives a pretty good history of the modern era of the number of cars and the changes NASCAR has seen.
That they run 43 cars is not written in stone. They can allow more cars if they want. As to who gets in if you make a change it shouldn't be during the season. But, maybe it is something they need to look at after the season depending on what problems they experience this season.
I suppose the main question is who is getting hurt? What contenders would be left out if the number were to change?
Mikey not making the race is bad for MWR and NAPA but is it bad for NASCAR and the other competitors? And, before anyone gets their panties in a wad I'm just picking him because he's a high profile team owner that has been left out. I could just as easily picked one of the others.
Don't we really just want the best cars/drivers on the tracks thru some system that is published so everyone knows the rules. The fact that some part timer can put up a good qualifying speed to knock out another racer but then they only have the resources to run a few laps where the racer that didn't make the race could not only have finished the race but maybe have contended for the win. Which driver do you really want to see in that case?
 
I say open the field to 45 teams, cut the champ provisionals and race your way in on best combined times for five laps.
 
We all know how i fell about this. Been saying the same thing for 3-5 years. Just have one or two guaranteed spots. After quif run heat races. Like Daytona just will less "heat laps" and cut the "feature" down to 300-400 miles.

If Jeff Gordon, Dale Jr, Jeff Burton, Kahne, Matt the Brat, Shrub, Tony. Do not preform in quif and do not make the transfer spot for the feature. To bad they are going home.
 
NASCAR will never do that because they don't want to last chance races to be better than the actual race. Besides, that also means spending more money, for teams and fans.

There is no good solution. Teams are going to get left out as long as there are more than 43 cars entered for any race.
 
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