The Facts On Qualifying For Nascar
Before any car can run in a NASCAR race, the driver must go through qualifying laps in order to determine what position that driver and car will start from on race day. NASCAR qualifying can be time consuming and expensive, as a team has to put so much effort into preparing to qualify before even preparing to race. In fact, it’s likely that most NASCAR fans don't stop to think about how NASCAR qualifying works until a driver they root for fails to successfully qualify. Lap times and guaranteed starters are two of the things which play a role in determining a driver’s starting placement. NASCAR qualifying begins with the cars getting run two laps, with the qualifying time set by what a driver records on the faster of the two laps. The laps are electronically timed to each one-thousandth of a second, for precision. However, qualifying is not all about the pair of laps that drivers run on the track. One might be tempted to believe that the fastest 43 cars that show up for NASCAR qualifying on any given week would start the race. However, that isn’t quite the way things run. The rules applied to NASCAR qualifying state that only the top 35 drivers in the points standings get a guaranteed slot on race day; essentially, it is a race to see who fills the other eight slots. This means that teams with a secure place in the top 35 are only out there determining where they will start on race day – so those drivers can rest easy knowing they aren’t about to go empty-handed. Previously, the qualifying order was determined by drawing – which took the cars and placed them randomly into the qualifying field. This meant weather and track conditions could differ greatly for cars depending on whether their qualifying run happened early or late in the day. Now, any cars outside the top 35 in the standings are bundled together in qualifying -- meaning they all will run together at the end of qualifying, with the hopes of getting similar track conditions for those least likely to qualify. (The 43rd starting position is reserved for any former NASCAR Champion that didn't qualify for the race in any manner.) Of course, this doesn’t mean that the “outsiders” don’t still have an equal shot to win the pole – the best time still wins and the drivers can finish in any order whatsoever. Through the first five races of the season, NASCAR uses car owner points – which are similar to driver points, except that they apply to the team which owns the car rather than an individual driver’s point totals – from the previous season to determine just who makes up the group of 35 guaranteed starters on race day. Once the sixth race of the year approaches, NASCAR shifts over to the current season's owner points and selects starters in that manner. This system is also used in the case of a rainout or something else that might cancel qualifying. Qualifying speeds will continue to determine most starting positions – although one significant exception is the Daytona 500. The unique process for Daytona involves the running of two actual mini-races to determine the pole positions for the Sunday race. The NASCAR qualifying system is consistently debated, and can be pretty complex – but when studied carefully, it becomes easy to see how things fit together to create the pole positions for each week's NASCAR race.
|