NASCAR: Qualifying Fiasco Is The Fault Of The Drivers
Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
When qualifying wrapped up Saturday afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway it seemed as though NASCAR was playing a joke on all of us. With drivers like Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin filling up the bottom of the starting grid it looked as though NASCAR decided to invert the starting order when qualifying was over. Unfortunately, that was not the case as the strange starting grid was the result of an even stranger qualifying session. Although many fans will be quick to blame NASCAR for what took place on Saturday, the responsibility of fault ultimately rests with the drivers.
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Back in September NASCAR announced the changes to the qualifying format at Talladega. Whether you think the changes are good or not doesn’t matter because the changes were made and that was that. Drivers and teams had almost six weeks to adjust and acclimate themselves to the new qualifying rules. When NASCAR announced the changes they made it clear that they wanted to create an environment during qualifying that was more like race day conditions. For those of you that might not be aware, race day conditions at Talladega usually consist of a large pack of cars running together in a very tight bunch.
Given the changes that NASCAR made and the reasoning’s behind those changes one would have assumed that during qualifying we were going to see a large pack of cars running together in a tight bunch.
Instead what we saw was a bunch of drivers that refused to work together and get onto the same page. No driver wanted to be the first one out because the car leading the large pack obviously isn’t going to have the same speed as the cars further back in that pack. You would think that the drivers would have come up with a plan or something ahead of time in order to get the most out of their qualifying run, clearly they did not. For those who did have a plan ahead of time it’s obvious that went out the window once qualifying began.
After the first group ran and everyone witnessed the confusion and unwillingness to be out on the track first it seemed only logical that the second group would have put together some sort of plan to make their run work better, they didn’t. The second group does deserve a little more credit though because Carl Edwards did his best to rally the group but nobody listened. Before the group went out Edwards suggested that they all take the track together and run in a line. Given the slow times produced by the cars in the first session, the odds of all the cars in the second session making the top-24 by working together seemed to be pretty good. When the second session began Edwards moved to the end of pit road and motioned for everyone else to come with him, nobody followed and the second session in the opening round turned out much like the first session did.
At the end of the day the drivers were vocal about how “stupid” or “silly” it is to qualify under these rules and there are some valid points there. However, it doesn’t matter how the drivers feel about the rules because their job is to go out and perform. If a driver didn’t like the new chase rules does that mean they should just try not to win races so they didn’t have to be a part of the chase? Of course not.
Heading into this weekend all of the drivers knew the rules and they should have known that the only way to make this work for everyone was by working together. When push came to shove on Saturday none of them wanted to work together and we all saw what transpired as a result. Fans can blame NASCAR for changing the rules all they want but at the end of the day the fault for what took place on Saturday belongs with the drivers.
Christopher Olmstead is the Editor of BeyondTheFlag.com on the FanSided Network. Follow us on Twitter @Beyond_The_Flag and “Like” us on Facebook.