Never in my 25 years of watching NASCAR have I seen what I saw on Friday. Jimmie Johnson and his team elected to not qualify for the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway electing to start in the rear of the field. It’s a bigger problem than you think.
In Friday’s lone practice session for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series teams Johnson lost control of his No. 48 Chevrolet and spun into the grass. There was enough damage on the car that the No. 48 team elected to go to a backup car. The team didn’t have enough time to make a lap by the time practice ended and never made a lap in the backup car. The first laps on the track in the backup car would have been during qualifying.
It was a risk for the team to go out and go as hard as they can during qualifying. Bringing a car onto a racetrack for the first time is always a risk. You don’t know how the car will handle and you don’t know if there are going to be any major issues with the car. Due to NASCAR’s chartering system, they were locked into the field so they were racing Sunday whether or not they took a lap. Instead of risking wrecking another car for a few qualifying positions the team decided to sit out qualifying and play it safe.
It’s a far cry from how NASCAR used to be. For years qualifying was one of the most important things during a weekend. On some weekends, there would be as many as 60 teams trying to qualify. You had to be on top of your game. If teams didn’t hit on the qualifying setup, there was a risk a team could go home and not race that weekend. Even if a team did qualify, starting in the back was a risk. The teams who started in the rear were usually ill-handling race cars. Being around those cars was risky because of the increased possibility of an accident. Plus, if you had a long green flag run to start the race, there was a risk of a team falling a lap down early in the event. Over the last five years that has completely changed.
Nowadays, qualifying is the least important thing of the weekend. It’s less important than practice. With the new format in NASCAR, there are at least two guaranteed caution flags, which means Johnson and his team have a chance to catch the field twice and there is little risk of falling a lap down. Accidents rarely happen anymore either. Between the technology in the sport and the lack of creativity NASCAR allows nowadays cars handle better than they ever have.
In 2017 NASCAR has a new rule where teams must start the race on the tires they qualified with. By not qualifying, Johnson and the team will have fresher tires than the teams who qualified. It’s a big deal considering the track surface at Auto Club Speedway is one of the oldest on the circuit and is really hard on tires. There will also be one less heat cycle on the tires that the No. 48 team uses to start the race and they have an extra set of tires at their disposal throughout the practice sessions on Saturday.
I believe this is an isolated incident but is something that has the potential to be an issue in the future. This is a monkey see, monkey do sport. If other teams see an advantage, teams will do this more often. I think it’s time to put a rule in that states teams must attempt a qualifying lap if they pass inspection. FOX and NBC pay a lot of money for the rights to broadcast qualifying and if one or more of NASCAR’s biggest stars elect to sit out, it could affect the relationship NASCAR has with the networks. It’s a bigger deal than you think.
