btw...my girl has a new crew chief. this year is gonna be spektakular. qualified 31st...so much for the new crew chief edit: don't fret fans. danica will have a rocketship fast cheater car for superspeedways this year. trust me.
The finin' and penilizin' has begun at Daytonner. Both Vickers and Harvick, after passing pre-qualifying inspections, failed re-inspections and had track bar (whatever a track bar is) issues. Should it be a surprise that they're both Stewart-Haas drivers? https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/nascar-disallows-qualifying-times-harvick-vickers-213520121--nascar.html What kills me is, they'll make a big fuss about something like this track bar thing or a airfoil being a tenth of a millimeter too low or whatever and, oh boy, watch out, NASCAR comes down with fines, suspensions, pillorying the crew chief, all this like a ton of bricks. But, during the race after the inevitable multi-car pile up, they'll let several damaged cars to go back out onto the track to be little more than mobile chicanes (often dropping parts and debris all over the track causing other cautions) and that is perfectly fine with NASCAR. They certainly draw a jagged line with their rules. BHW
Barton, a crew member slammed himself into the #48 last year putting a nice dent in the right place, since it was obviously intentional, they had to bring it back in and make it right again.
Urm, okey... Without knowing the context of this, it goes to show how these arcane rules that NASCAR keeps coming up with have ruined what little is left of the sporting aspect and replaced it with "show". BHW
Lets see, the last three single car daytona 500 pole winners. Danica Patrick - Started full time cup debut that year with a premade media blitz about a woman driver in nascar. Austin Dillon - Started full time cup debut that year with a premade media blitz about the three returning to cup racing. Chase Elliot - Started full time cup debut that year(I haven't watched the Telly,not sure what the media blitz is).
There's a big brouhaha on the Racer forums on this subject, the die hard NASCAR apologists who state that there is no way for NASCAR to rig qualifying. And, those whom are screaming foul and claiming that the whole thing is a sham. You know me, I don't like to say anything negative about NASCAR (a-hem), but when they have Cup "name" rookies take the pole position in their biggest event three years in a row, you've got to know something ain't right. One guy made that point that the teams are not the ones who put the restrictor plates on the cars, NASCAR does that. Well, there's a case for shenanigans right there. So, if NASCAR may literally control the amount of fuel flowing through these restrictor plates, imagine what else they've got their tentacles into! It has all become so absurd now that it almost defies belief. Almost. BHW
Not three years in a row per see, they had group qualifying, which Jeff Gordan won on his final season, they returned to the single car.
Right you are, that debacle of a qualifying thing that they tried last year sure petered out, jah?! So, from here on out, does NASCAR put an asterisk next to the names of those whom qualified on pole under that disastrous system? BHW
It was only a disaster at the plate tracks. Everywhere else I thought it was quite good. I went to several qualifying nights under the new format.
A very deserving winner. Gordon advised the viewing audience he would make a run at it and he was 100% correct. Phenomenal car control (and a splash of luck) by quite a few of the drivers kept wreckage at a minimum, the cars were tail happy.
I wanted Truex to win I was at the track yesterday for the 300 and I must say they did an incredible job with the Daytona Rising Project. 500% better with the grandstands and the amenities under it. They also put a lot of stuff between the stands and Speedway Blvd. to see and do. They even went as far as widening the sidewalk along the street for a much nicer walk back to the car. Easy to see where that $400 million went. The racing wasn't bad either.
I think NASCAR has ruined the sport with "The chase". No way Kyle Bush should have been able to do what he did after missing 11 or so races. In reality a driver could finish top five every race and finish second the last race and not be champion. I wonder how the past years would have been old system versus chase. If you want to see real racing go watch sprint cars. Why do you think Tony Stewart loves them so much?
In the old points system it was possible for a guy to have multiple wins and a few DNFs finish the year behind a guy that never won but strung together enough top five finishes to win the championship. I believe that happened with Kenseth winning the championship without a win while other driver had multiple wins. So it becomes a toss up. Do you want the series championship to be about winning or consistency. NASCAR decided to lean towards winning and developed the Chase format. They feel it has worked well enough to now use it in the other series. It should be noted that consistency can also play a part in the Chase because positions are given to those with the highest point total to the spots not taken by the winners. I do agree that Kyle Busch shouldn't have been given a " new " medical wavier rule and it should have been put into place at the beginning of this year and not made on the spot so he could go on to win the championship in 2015.
That medical waiver rule was from 2014 btw. It wasn't "new" for kyle busch. Tony Stewart received such a waiver when he broke his leg, however, he failed to make it in so it wasn't as big of "news". It really puzzles me why people think it was a new rule for Kyle Busch. It was mentioned when the chase required every race to be attended to be chase eligible that NASCAR would make medical exceptions.
2014. Had to be 30th in points, and attempted to qualify for the first 26 races unless given an exception by NASCAR.
So, tell us about the rule in the "Chase" books that allowed Jeff Gordon to get in a couple of years ago when he missed out by some fluke (and subsequent fan outrage), NASCAR took pity on him and allowed him in because they felt sorry for him? Imagine in the NFL, NBA, MLB, et.al. if a certain popular team was allowed into the post season playoffs due to some fluke that eliminated them at the last moment only for the respective league to allow them in because they felt sorry for them. Elaborate on this NASCAR rule please. BHW
That was not a fluke, that was a manipulation of the points system by Michael waltrip racing to get one of their drivers into the chase, and therefore eliminating Jeff Gordon.
Can you provide a link to that. The way I understand it is Tony Stewart was given a medical wavier in 2014 because he missed a few races due to emotional stress due to the dirt track fatality. He missed far too many races from the broken leg to even be considered for Chase eligibility. There is no way NASCAR would allow a driver to miss many races and then just enter a few and be a Chase contender. In 2015 Kyle Busch missed the first eleven races and NASCAR decided to make an exception for him by adding the condition that he must also finish in the top thirty in points along with either winning or pointing his way into the Chase. The medical wavier, different from medical clearance, is given to a driver to make him eligible for the Chase if he wasn't able to complete the condition of attempting to start all 26 races in the regular season due to medical reasons. The point is Busch was given the medical wavier after missing 11 of the 26 races leading up to the Chase. That is almost half the races. That shouldn't have happened and he got special consideration in doing it.
In my opinion NASCAR should have froze the field at the time of the MWR race manipulation because after that the race was tainted. Jeff Gordon was in position to advance so giving him that position was the right thing to do because he had been cheated out of it by MWR. Freezing the field would have eliminated Truex, a driver for MWR, but NASCAR decided to let his finishing position stand which had knocked Gordon. By giving Gordon his spot they began the Chase with an extra driver but I think that's fair given the unusual set of circumstances.
I can't help but think that NASCAR i.e. The France family gave Kyle the waiver because Kyle crashed on their track in an area that didn't have safer barriers, which were added after his crash. The crash could have very well ended Kyle's carrier, or even killed him.
I was there at the track sitting almost directly in front of where he hit the wall. I was watching the wreck unfold and saw his car take off away from the pack of wrecking cars and it didn't seem to slow down at all. My first thought is the car was going to go off into the RV section at a high rate of speed. Then the wall came into play and he abruptly stopped. That part is way out from the racing surface and you wouldn't think a car would make it all the way over but it did. I don't feel NASCAR was negligent in not having the safer barriers there as it was such a low risk spot. They don't have them on the pit wall either and cars hit it. I think last year two cars hit the pit wall at Pocono. As you said they have added the safer barrier to the section Busch hit and continue to do what they can to make the races safer. I think they allowed Busch to qualify for the Chase because he is a top driver and the move would give them lots of press and publicity as people watched to see if he could pull it off. For those that may have not seen the wreck...... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZBLnKkWgQw[/ame]
Barton, I did not watch the rest of the season, took all NASCAR related sights off my bookmarks, I still do not know who won that year or how that season finished out. They should of left it 12 cars. That was indeed pulling a "new" set of rules out of nowhere. Especially when they backpedaled on what they penalized MWR for at Daytona allowing cars to hang back. :\ You still have to finish in front of the competition consistently to acquire the points to beat your competition even if they pit to give a teammate points. Its now muddy for no point. Davesvt2000, Pitting cars to give points to someone who needs them, or having a car slow up, went on in the 2012 Richmond race, 2011 Richmond race, etc... MWR did nothing new, just they knocked out a golden boy.
Str8 Medical 2014. https://youtu.be/e5PoEzZfwW4?t=23m28s Breakdown of chase eligibility on Jayski 2014 Jan 30th. Both the top 30 in points, and an exception on NASCARS desecration to waive participating in every race were part of the 2014 chase rules.
