NASCAR makes Daytona qualifying changes
"We continue to work in collaboration with the industry to implement the most exciting and competitive qualifying format, especially as it relates to Superspeedways," NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O'Donnell said. " As a result, we have made a few adjustments to the format for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the NASCAR XFINITY Series events later this week at Daytona. We will continue to review the qualifying format for future Superspeedway events."
For Camping World Truck Keystone Light Pole Qualifying (Friday, 4:45 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1) and XFINITY Coors Light Pole Qualifying (Saturday, 12:15 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1), the field will be broken into four groups with a quarter of the field in each group.
In Round 1, groups will be set based on a random draw. Each group will be staged by NASCAR officials at the exit of pit road, and each vehicle must have its left-side tires on the outside line of a pit boxes. The vehicles will be staged with adequate spacing between vehicles to allow each driver the opportunity to roll off of pit road at his or her discretion. Once the vehicle starts rolling, it cannot stop. It must proceed to the track. The vehicles may go one at a time or in a group, but they must keep rolling once they start.
Each group will have two minutes and 30 seconds — half the previous allotted time — to complete a lap. There will be a three-minute break between each of the four groups in Round 1 and then a 10-minute break between Rounds 1 and 2. The fastest 24 times advance to Round 2.
In Round 2, the 12 odd-ranked vehicles (fastest to slowest) in Round 1 will be in the first group, and the 12 even-ranked vehicles (fastest to slowest) in Round 1 will be in the second group. The staging process will be the same, and each group will have two minutes and 30 seconds to complete a lap with a three-minute break between groups. After a 10-minute break, the top 12 advance to Round 3.
In Round 3, the top 12 vehicles will have two minutes and 30 seconds to complete a lap.
All other qualifying rules will apply with normal cooling procedures and the lineup set per the rule book.
The rules update comes three days after Daytona 500 qualifying, which saw a wreck in Round 1 and drivers waiting until the last possible second to cross the start/finish line to complete a lap. On Sunday, Jeff Gordon, the last driver to cross the under the flag stand before the red and black flags waved in the final round, won the Coors Light Pole for the Great American Race.
"I'm glad that they're open to making changes and trying to learn from those changes," Earnhardt said on Wednesday about the changes for XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series qualifying at Daytona. "The last segment of (Sprint Cup) qualifying I thought was exciting. There were only 12 cars in that segment, and we weren't sure if we could make it back at the time."