Clint Bowyer rips qualifying format
— -- DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- An angry Clint Bowyer lashed out at NASCAR for the group qualifying format used for the Daytona 500, a format he placed the blame on for causing Reed Sorenson to cause a wreck in the first segment Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.
Sorenson, driving for the low-budget Team Xtreme Racing, made a daring move and then tried to block Bowyer, resulting in an accident that trashed both of their cars as well as the cars of Bobby Labonte and J.J. Yeley.
"It ain't his fault," Bowyer said. "It's NASCAR's fault for putting us out in the middle of this crap for nothing."
NASCAR had previously used single-car runs to determine the Daytona 500 pole, but NASCAR went to group qualifying for the remainder of the 2014 races and opted to use it for the Daytona 500 as well starting this year. Jeff Gordon took the pole and Jimmie Johnson will join him in the front row.
For Daytona, it split the 49 drivers into two groups, who went out in five-minute sessions. The fastest 24 among those two groups advanced to the second five-minute round with the fastest 12 advancing to the final five-minute round to determine the Daytona 500 pole and the lineups for the qualifying races Thursday.
The group qualifying is designed to make qualifying more interesting for fans. It has been considered successful except for the restrictor-plate tracks, where drivers try to get to the rear of the line of cars on the track so they can get a fast speed in the aerodynamics of the draft.
"There's no reason to be putting a show on, trying to make something out of nothing that doesn't need to be," said Bowyer, whose Michael Waltrip Racing team also has a crashed car from Saturday's exhibition Sprint Unlimited. "We put a hell of a show on for the Daytona 500. ... These cars are just destroyed for no reason. We're not even to the (qualifying races). Don't forget that. There's a lot of racing left."
For Sorenson, he needed to post a good speed in order to have something to fall back on if he can't race his way in Thursday. There are six spots (and one past champion's provisional) available based on owner points, and Sorenson was 44th among the 49 cars in the 2014 owner standings. Bowyer, 19th in the owner points, should be OK but has no guarantee of making the Daytona 500 if he has a bad race Thursday.
"He has a right to be upset," Sorenson said. "I was trying to block him. What you saw was what I was trying to do. I was just trying to stay in front of him to get that good lap. ... That was our only shot to run a good lap was to stay in front of him.
"You see blocking here all of the time. It's just part of this racing, and now it's part of the qualifying here."
Sorenson's team didn't have a backup and might not be able to race Thursday to try to get into the 500. His team at times has qualified for races and then parked the car to collect the prize money even if it doesn't have the money to run the entire event.
"We used to come down here and worry about who would sit on the front pole in the biggest race of the year," Bowyer said. "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."
