Daytona qualifying turns into circus
— -- DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- They used to say a monkey could drive the car in Daytona 500 qualifying because, in a single-car run, the driver just hammers the gas, turns the wheel and virtually becomes a passenger.
NASCAR got rid of the monkey for 2015. It employed an entire circus instead.
Who won the 2015 Daytona pole Sunday didn't disappoint. Jeff Gordon, in his 23rd and final Daytona 500, will start from the pole. The Hendrick Motorsports driver played the game of group qualifying on a restrictor-plate track perfectly for his second career Daytona 500 pole.
"In the past, this has been one of the easiest days I've had all [year] long -- go out there, hold it wide open, run a couple laps," Gordon said. "It's all about the team, the car, all the preparation they put into it.
"All that hard work still goes into this effort, but I play a bigger role, the spotter plays a bigger role. There's just so much more strategy in trying to play this chess match and the time game, the wait game. It just becomes really intense. This feels good for that reason alone."
But this wasn't a perfect day for NASCAR, and it had to be thankful that Gordon emerged as the pole sitter for next Sunday's race so that not all the focus centered around how the pole was determined rather than who won it.
NASCAR has admirable goals: It doesn't want teams wasting money on single-car setups, and it doesn't want a three-hour qualifying event when it can have a 45-minute show that relies a little bit more on what makes the car strong in a race.
But it hasn't achieved an entertaining product that gives fans a sense that the driver who leads the field for the sport's biggest race truly has the deserving car -- and even more importantly that the drivers who could potentially miss the race deserved that fate.
Finally, the way the drivers game the system, sitting at the end of pit road trying to fake when they actually will start their qualifying run in hopes of ending up at the rear of the pack, looks plain stupid.
"Unless they run us through the chicane on the backstretch or something, I don't know how we make it entertaining," said Jimmie Johnson, who will start beside Gordon on the Daytona 500 front row.
While the restrictor-plate race creates excitement, this in no way compares to a race. The point of a race? Be out front. The winner of the Daytona 500 also must have a great car and make the right moves over several laps and not just one as in group qualifying where the driver looks to post a fast speed in a five-minute session to advance to the next round.
To do that, the driver must run in a pack at least for a lap. Whenever cars run in packs at restrictor-plate tracks, the potential for carnage exists. Throw in drivers who must post great speeds to boost their chances to make the Daytona 500, and that adds to a recipe for disaster.
"When you saw two cars crash in the first round, that gives me enough to be stressed about right there," Gordon said. "It's not out of the question that that can happen at any time. You're slicing through some cars that maybe are by themselves that aren't up to speed, slower cars, you have to draft off of them."
The crash Gordon referred to highlighted the disappointments of the day. Clint Bowyer, blocked by Reed Sorenson, left with a totaled race car, as did Sorenson, JJ Yeley and Bobby Labonte. All but Bowyer drive for teams with limited funding and their opportunity to make the Daytona 500 took a hit, although Labonte could have access to a past champion's provisional. Denny Hamlin's car also sustained damage.
"Mayhem," Hamlin said. "There's no other word to describe it. Everybody's on so many different agendas. This stuff can happen."
Bowyer lashed out at NASCAR.
"It makes no sense in being able to put on some cute show for whatever the hell this is," he said.
This is how the cute show finished Sunday: When the final 12-driver, five-minute session started, no one went out. Finally Martin Truex Jr. took to the track. He finished 12th. Johnson was last. He should have been first. Instead he was 0.035 seconds slower than Gordon, the driver immediately in front of him.
Gordon in many ways had nothing to worry about entering qualifying. By virtue of being in the top six in the 2014 owner standings, his car was guaranteed a spot in the Daytona 500.
After qualifying Sunday, 13 drivers know they will be in. Only Gordon and Johnson know where they will start (the front row), but Aric Almirola, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Carl Edwards and Jamie McMurray have the best speeds among the rest and are guaranteed spots, while Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman, Hamlin, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth are guaranteed a provisional based on 2014 points. Tony Stewart is in with a past champion's provisional if he needs it.
"All of us wish that when we were driving around any track that you're actually having to drive it, the handling playing a role, how hard you push the car," Gordon said. "That's not the case here anyway.
"If you compare it to what we used to do, which is really boring, this is probably the extreme the other way, where it's extremely intense. But when it turns out the way it did for me, then you like it. When it turns out the way it did for Bowyer, you hate it."
Stewart didn't crash, and he also hated it.
"Today use to be about showcasing the hard work from the teams over the winter," he tweeted. "Now it [is] a complete embarrassment for our series."
Gordon could afford to be a little amused by it all. It's his last time doing it, and he has a more of a throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude. As NASCAR executive vice president Steve O'Donnell addressed the media following qualifying, Gordon walked through the media center and shouted, "Great format, Steve!"
Most people laughed, partly because of the spontaneity of the moment. It was at least funny for those not working on cars or parts and pieces back in North Carolina to replace the ones lost Sunday.
That's the problem with this format. It's easy to feel happy for Gordon. It's easy to feel bad for those who got the raw end of the deal.
And it's easy to laugh at the end of the day because it appeared so ridiculous and so arbitrary that it's easier to laugh than to know the answer to solve the problem.
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