The first group qualifying session at the Daytona 500 did not go well.
Just minutes into the first round, a bad multi-car wreck destroyed several cars, including those of Clint Bowyer and Reed Sorenson. Denny Hamlin, JJ Yeley, Bobby Labonte and Greg Biffle also sustained damage in Sunday afternoon’s first round.
Bowyer got out of his car and yelled several times into Sorenson’s window, visibly angry after Sorenson, who was in front of him, apparently tried to block.
Earlier, Sorenson had run into the back of Justin Allgaier, which shot Allgaier up the track. Bowyer got into the back of Sorenson.
Bowyer was livid when he came out of the care center and took NASCAR to task for using this format to set the field for its version of the Super Bowl.
“First of all, I wasn’t behind the 44 (Sorenson). He comes flying around, comes up on the apron, jumps in front of me, then runs over the 51, stacks us all up and I run into him.
“It’s idiotic to be out here doing this anyway. There’s no sense in trying to put on some cute show for whatever the hell this is. Then you’ve got a guy out there in desperation doing this crap like this. There’s no reason to be out here. These guys have spent six months working on these cars, busting their (rears) on these cars, to go out there and have some guy out of desperation do that crap.
“But it ain’t his fault. It’s not. It’s NASCAR’s fault for putting us out here in the middle of this crap for nothing. We used to come down here and worry about who was going to sit on the front row and the pole for the biggest race of the year. Now all we do is come down here and worry about how a start-and-park like this out of desperation is going to knock us out of the Daytona 500. We’ve been at meetings for 45 minutes just to try and figure out what in the hell everyone is going to do, just so we can make the race. It’s stupid. There’s no sense in doing this. “
The session was red-flagged. When it restarted, the remaining cars in the group did not leave pit road in time to complete one full lap so none of those times counted.
This is the first year NASCAR has not used single-car qualifying for the Daytona 500 pole. Jeff Gordon secured the top slot with the fastest time in the final round. Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson will start second.
Sorenson was apologetic.
“He (Bowyer) came up to the window. He was pretty upset. He has a right to be upset. I was trying to block. I was trying to stay in front of him to get that good lap. I didn’t think he was up to me yet. Next thing I know I’m spinning,. Guess I didn’t think he was that far up. Trying to run that one good lap. The only way to run a good lap and the only way was to stay in front of him. You see blocking here all the time. It’s part of this racing and now it’s part of the qualifying.
“Normally in a race I probably wouldn’t be that aggressive unless it’s the last lap and you’re trying to win the race. For us, trying to get in the race is that big a deal where I was treating it like the last lap of a race. That’s how aggressive you have to be when you’re not in the race. That’s how this qualifying is — it forces you into that.”
Other drivers complained along pit road while waiting between sessions.
2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch: “We gotta find a better system. So much hard work goes into these cars, and it seems like it’s a roulette system.”
Ryan Newman said everyone up and down pit road didn’t understand why NASCAR was using these system.
“Hard to stand behind #nascar when nobody knows why we’re doing this. Maybe I need to get sit down and educated about this.”
Three-time NASCAR Cup champion Tony Stewart tweeted: “Today use to be about showcasing the hard work from the teams over the winter. Now it a complete embarrassment for our series. #NASCAR”
Last fall at Talladega Superspeedway, another restrictor-plate track, NASCAR employed this elimination system and drivers were very vocal about the format.
At the time, Kevin Harvick said: “This qualifying is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. It just doesn’t work on the (super)speedways.”
