NASCAR: The craziest, most embarrassing qualifying session

Last year’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Auto Club Speedway was one to remember. It was also one to forget. It also technically didn’t happen.

The NASCAR Cup Series is set for its annual trip to Auto Club Speedway for this Sunday afternoon’s Auto Club 400, the third of 36 races on the 2020 schedule.

On Saturday afternoon, the 38 drivers who are slated to compete in the event are set to qualify, each by completing one timed lap around the four-turn, 2.0-mile (3.219-kilometer) oval in Fontana, California.

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This will mark the first single-car qualifying session of the season. Qualifying for the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway is unique in that a single-car session sets only the front row while two Duel races set the remainder of the starting lineup.

The qualifying session for last Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway would have been the first single-car qualifying session of the season, but it ended up getting rained out.

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Last year at this time, single-car qualifying sessions were not being utilized. But the disaster and embarrassment that was the Auto Club 400 qualifying session changed that.

At this time last season, group qualifying was still being utilized. Every driver on the entry list was allowed to compete in the first of three timed rounds. From there, the fastest 24 drivers from the opening round advanced to the second round and the fastest 12 drivers in the second round advanced to the third and final round to determine the race polesitter. There was no lap limit in any round.

Last year, it was Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon who took the pole position for the Auto Club 400.

He did so with a lap at 0.000 seconds (0.000 miles per hour). It was one of the most embarrassing moments that NASCAR had ever seen.

Because of the new rules package that was introduced ahead of the 2019 season, running in the draft drastically improved qualifying speeds. As a result, the group of 12 drivers who advanced to the third and final round of qualifying all waited until the clock had been considerably drained before going out onto the track.

Why? Simple; nobody wanted to be the first driver out on the track to effectively become the sacrificial lamb.

Needing to get a move on, the pack eventually made their way out onto the track, but by the time they reached the start/finish line to begin what they had hoped would be their one timed lap, the clock had already hit 0:00.

So the starting order reverted to the results of the second round of qualifying, where Dillon was quickest with a top lap time of 39.982 seconds (180.081 miles per hour) behind the wheel of his #3 Chevrolet.

The other drivers who shared in the embarrassment of being a part of this infamous group and took the boos that rained down from the grandstands were Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola and Clint Bowyer, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and Jimmie Johnson and Roush Fenway Racing teammates Ryan Newman and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Just two weeks earlier at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a similar thing had happened. But only two of the 12 drivers, Elliott and teammate Alex Bowman, failed to cross the start/finish line before the clock hit 0:00 and thus were unable to start an official qualifying lap.

They still completed those laps anyway, and had they counted, they would have been fastest (Bowman) and second fastest (Elliott) to lock out the front row, further illustrating the obvious benefits of running in the back with this new package. But this error was effectively chalked up to their own mistake, and as a result, NASCAR changed nothing rules-wise.

So after the Auto Club Speedway disaster played out, NASCAR slightly altered the qualifying format.

But at Texas Motor Speedway just two weeks later, frustrations grew even more, as multiple drivers were irritated with other drivers for effectively blocking their way out onto the track by lining themselves up in the middle of the pits, even when the rules stated that this was not permitted.

Eventually, NASCAR ended the controversy by bringing back single-car qualifying for all oval tracks, and that’s how we got to where we are today.

Formula 1, though, gave us their best impression of this disastrous NASCAR session later in the year for the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. In the final round of group qualifying for that race, the cars were all packed up on the track as the clock wound down, with blocking going on as drivers aimed to put themselves in the best position to get a good tow for their timed laps.

Six of the 10 drivers in this group had already completed a lap earlier in the round, but as the field made their way to the start/finish line, only two in the group made it in time to start another lap. One of them had already completed a lap, so seven drivers officially ended the round with a time while three did not.

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Tune in to Fox Sports 1 at 2:30 p.m. ET this Saturday, February 29 for the live broadcast of the first single-car qualifying session of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season from Auto Club Speedway, and tune in to Fox at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 1 for the live broadcast of the Auto Club 400 itself.

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