Today, NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition and Racing Development made the announcement that NASCAR will not feature single-car qualifying in 2014. Instead, they will be going to the group knock-0ut qualifying that is featured in open wheel racing.
Pemberton says the idea has been in the works for a long time and finally, they were able to put the pieces together after consulting those involved in the sport.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a track owner, a car owner, a crew chief, a driver, a sponsor, everybody has different ideas to help move this sport forward,” he said. “It’s something that we’ve been talking about for quite some time. You know, you make these decisions, some benefit more than others at different times, but I don’t think you could put a finger on any one group that would have encouraged anything like this.
“We have really great relationships out there and we work hard together, and these are the products that we come up with when we work hard together.”
Pemberton said that they considered many ideas, though this was the best one to go with.
“Really for us to try to be as consistent as we could across the board for all of our racetracks and our stakeholders, we felt like this format here was going to serve as the best right now, with three rounds at our bigger tracks and two rounds,” he said. “And so we looked at a lot of different things. We kept coming back and kept pointing to this that it could be the best for us currently.”
NASCAR released the following graphic to help explain their new format:
Other notables about the format include:
- Provisionals will still be used to set positions 36 to 43.
- If multiple cars finish with the same lap time and speed then the positions would be determined by owner’s points.
- If there’s an incident on track, the red flag will be displayed and the clock will be frozen.
- There will be a five minute break between sessions for adjustments. Teams can make wedge,tire pressure,track bar, and tape adjustments between each qualifying round, but can only use one set of tires for the entire qualifying session and are not allowed to jack up the car or raise the hood between sessions.
- Random draw will determine the order of cars on pit road as they roll out for the first round of qualifying.
- If weather halts qualifying starting positions will be based off the last completed qualifying session.
- Daytona 500 qualifying,Eldora Truck qualifying, and qualifying for the two non points races however will remain unchanged.
From a fan’s perspective, this looks like a good idea as it should add excitement, though some competitors also believe that the change is a nice one.
I found this quote fitting. “All great changes are preceded by chaos.” -Deepak Chopra Get ready @nascar fans!
— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) January 22, 2014
I LOVE the new qualifying formats. Going to add new achievable goals for growing teams, as well adding excitement & strategy. Great Stuff!
— Parker Kligerman (@pkligerman) January 22, 2014
Glad to see @NASCAR making some much needed changes to qualifying. Should be fun at these worn out tracks making multiple runs on tires!
— David Ragan (@DavidRagan) January 23, 2014
For NASCAR, it’s also good on a financial side as Pemberton feels its a benefit to their sponsors.
“It’s better for Coors and Keystone, and it’s going to be a better show for TV and the people at home will have a better opportunity to watch these guys qualify,” he said.
Pemberton added that the change should work out well for the tracks as the added excitement versus two hours of single-car runs should help draw the crowd in.
It also make it easier for the TV partners in the sport as they don’t have to set aside two hours of broadcast time.
“We work with all of our key partners on a lot of these things,” Pemberton explained. “This isn’t a decision that was made in a short period of time. It took a lot of work and effort and a lot of areas. Whether it be broadcasters or competitors or sponsors here at NASCAR. So there were a lot of people, a lot of groups that weighed in on all of this. Like everything else that we do, it’s important that everybody’s engaged and we get everybody’s take on the ups and downs of some of these things.”
NASCAR knew that fans were bored with the current system as most would skip watching it at the track or on television and just view the results online later. With the new system and the unknowns associated with it, it should bring more excitement.
Though there’s also many unknowns….and the chance of cars wrecking together. If you put a bunch of cars in a pack at Daytona or Talladega, many times it brings forth wrecks.
And it appears spotters will now be required in qualifying too! Can’t wait til we have a 20 car wreck in Dega during qualifying.
— Brett Griffin (@SpotterBrett) January 22, 2014
The first test for the new qualifying format will be NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualifying for their season opener at Daytona International Speedway in February.
