Qualified mess
February 24, 2007 6:59 am EDT
By Jerry Bonkowski
Yahoo! Sports
FONTANA, Calif. – If Michael Waltrip were Donald Trump, he might have gone up to David Reutimann, tapped him on the shoulder and bellowed, "You're fired!"
What else could be done after Reutimann qualified better than his team owner Friday, knocking Waltrip from the starting grid for Sunday's Auto Club 500 at California Speedway and sending him back home to North Carolina – the second major embarrassment that Michael Waltrip Racing has endured in the last two weeks.
And don't be surprised to see Ray Evernham, despite all the trouble his organization got into at Daytona, walking around with a slight smirk on his face because his former driver, Jeremy Mayfield, has now missed qualifying for each of the season's first two races – as have A.J. Allmendinger, Ward Burton and Kenny Wallace, among others.
As the old saying goes, "Them's the breaks."
Such is NASCAR's top-35 qualifying system, where drivers who pilot a car that did not finish last season in the top 35 in owner points are not given automatic qualifying berths like their higher-ranked peers and therefore are forced to race their way into each of this season's first five races on speed.
And fall agonizingly short, as Waltrip and Mayfield did on Friday.
But with the increased number of full-time teams in Cup racing this season, perhaps NASCAR should go back to the drawing board – or at least revisit the current system. Might a better, more fair and even system be to reduce the number of exemptions to, say, the top 30 or even top 25 cars by last season's final owner points instead of the top 35, thus allowing more drivers a chance to race their way in? This also would apply after the first five races, when the automatic berths are based on this year's standings.
Then there are past champion provisionals. Instead of unlimited usage, a new rule implemented this season gives each Nextel Cup champion not in the top 35 and not fast enough on speed just six guaranteed qualifying provisions for the whole season.
And with Friday's qualifying, Dale Jarrett now has already used up two of those six provisionals.
If he continues to struggle in qualifying, it's not too far of a reach to think that Jarrett may ultimately fail to qualify for several races this season, something that his fans and particularly primary sponsor UPS and car manufacturer Toyota are all not going to be very happy about.
Some observers have suggested that doing away with the top-35 locked-in system would be best, that qualifying should be based solely on what speed a driver achieves in his two-lap burst around a race track on either Friday or Saturday every week. Ergo, everyone has an equal chance to make it – or not – and we have a true field of the fastest to slowest.
Best of all, no provisionals, no past-champ exemptions, no owners points.
But here's one idea that may be the best compromise yet.
Let's have, say, a 25-lap qualifier race on Fridays for all drivers who enter an event but are outside the top 35 in owner points that particular week. Make the qualifying race the sole factor to determine which seven or eight drivers ranked outside the top 35 should advance to Sunday's main event.
And if a team gets knocked out of Sunday's race due to a wreck and damage sustained in the prerace qualifier, well, them's the breaks.
There's not a stock car driver in Cup today who hasn't gone through some semblance of qualifying races earlier in his career while competing in smaller racing series. That's particularly true in events for classes such as modifieds and late models, not to mention sprint cars and midgets, among others, in the open wheel world.
The current qualifying system is just too confusing, and it may not be all that fair, given how many more teams are around in 2007. Having a qualifying race, while still leaving obstacles for those outside the top 35, would greatly simplify the qualifying equation.
Once Sunday's race is over, guys who failed to qualify for one of this season's first two races thus far – like Waltrip, Paul Menard and Brian Vickers – will be able to better assess the damage they've suffered and what it will mean for them over the rest of the season.
But the ones that are really in big trouble – guys like Mayfield, Waltrip, Burton, Allmendinger, Wallace and others – are so far behind the 8-ball already that they may be unable to recover the rest of this season.
That's right, their hopes for a good points finish may be gone before these drivers even really got started.
At least with my proposed system, they might still have a chance to turn things around. Right now, there's little but doom and gloom on the horizon for these teams – and there still are 34 races left!
Veteran motorsports writer Jerry Bonkowski is Yahoo! Sports' NASCAR columnist. Send Jerry a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
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