NASCAR qualifying tweaks are what the sport needed after Auto Club disaster

The disaster that was qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway prompted tweaks to qualifying, which are exactly what the sport needed.

After the third and final qualifying round for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway, the Auto Club 400, resulted in a grand total of zero of the 12 drivers who advanced to this round completed laps in it, NASCAR needed to make a change or changes, literally any change or changes, to qualifying to prevent this kind of embarrassing disaster from ever happening again.

With driving in the draft giving drivers such an advantage with the new aero package, none of the 12 drivers who advanced to this qualifying round wanted to be the first driver of the round on the track to complete a lap around the four-turn, 2.0-mile (3.219-kilometer) Auto Club Speedway oval in Fontana, California.

When the pack of 12 drivers eventually left the pits, they did not have enough time to get to the starting line to start their qualifying laps before the clock hit 0:00.

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As they needed to, NASCAR did, in fact, make changes in an attempt to ensure that this occurrence was a one-time occurrence.

Beginning this weekend, during which Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Truck Series races are all scheduled to take place at Texas Motor Speedway, new rules are set to be in place for qualifying.

There are two new rules in place in response to what happened (or really what didn’t happen) at Auto Club Speedway less than two weeks ago. First of all, drivers who fail to complete a lap in any of the qualifying rounds to which they advance will have all of their previous qualifying lap times disallowed.

This means that if drivers fail to complete a lap in any of these rounds, they will be forced to start the race at the back of the grid, not simply forced to start where they would have started had they finished in last place in a given round.

Next, any drivers who, based on NASCAR’s judgment, block pit road in a way that prevents other drivers from exiting the pits to make a qualifying attempt will be penalized as well. They will either be issued the same penalty or disqualification from subsequent qualifying rounds.

As a result, drivers will no longer be allowed to sit at the end of pit road and wait until the clock runs down before making their qualifying attempts. There will be a NASCAR-designated track-specific area in place each weekend, and once drivers leave this area, they will be required to exit the pits and make their way onto the track.

These changes are exactly what NASCAR needed, not because they are perfect changes that everybody wanted, but because of the fact that they are set to take on the issue at hand and the additional fact that they are set to do so from multiple angles.

Drivers still won’t want to be the first driver out to make a qualifying attempt, especially in the third and final qualifying round. However, the fact that even the worst of qualifying runs in the third and final round will result in a 12th place starting position may make them think twice before risking not getting to the starting line in time and thus starting the race in last just to be in the draft and have a chance to start from the pole position.

As a result, these changes should add an element of strategy to qualifying. Sure, there still very well may be drivers who fail to complete laps during this session and end up starting the race from the back of the pack because they failed to make it to the starting line on time and thus lost out on a gamble to potentially start from the pole position simply because they didn’t want to start in 12th place.

But don’t expect to see 12 of the 12 drivers who make it to the third and final qualifying combine to complete zero laps in this round like the case was at Auto Club Speedway, a case that nobody wants to see repeat itself.

Will the changes that NASCAR made to qualifying produce the desired result of every driver who advances to a given round actually completing at least one lap in said round? These new rules are set to be on display in the Cup Series for the first time for the qualifying session for this Sunday’s race, the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, at Texas Motor Speedway. This session is scheduled to take place on Friday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. ET, and it is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1.