The gang that can’t shoot straight

Brian France, leader of 'the Gang who can't shoot straight'

As you've probably already surmised by now, trying to predict the NASCAR brain trust's train of thought when it comes to wrangling with issues determining its future, let alone confronting of-the-moment issues facing the series that should be on the front burner, is a fool's errand. Let's face it, the honchos running NASCAR move in mysterious ways, confusing even its own loyal constituents at every turn, so the fact that qualifying for its biggest race of the year – the Daytona 500 – turned into a chaotic mess this past Sunday, shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

NASCAR is still the only major form of motorsport that has its most prestigious race kick off its season, so you would think this would be the one time when NASCAR wouldn't screw things up by trying to juice-up the proceedings with its "knock-out" qualifying format, which was debuted last year, especially on a restrictor-plate track where they ran into trouble with it at Talladega. But no, even though reluctant to change, once NASCAR decides to do something it locks-in to that change for the duration – or until it's proven that it is too stupid for words – and usually chaos ensues, like it did on Sunday.

It is almost inconsequential that Hendrick Motorsports – NASCAR's defacto house team – swept the front row in qualifying, with 43-year-old Jeff Gordon getting the pole in his final season and teammate Jimmie Johnson right alongside him. From Gordon, Johnson and Hendrick's perspective, qualifying for NASCAR's race was just fine and dandy. For everyone else, it was an abject embarrassment. Here was NASCAR fiddling while its biggest stage burned, and it was such a colossal screw-up that even the normally muzzled and compliant drivers let loose with a barrage of pissed-off comments aimed right at the NASCAR brain trust.

Denny Hamlin called it "mayhem," as Brant James reported in USA Today. "There's no other word to describe it." Tony Stewart termed it a "complete embarrassment." And Kyle Larson and David Ragan added "pathetic" and "gimmicky" (respectively) to the chorus. But the most furious comments came from Clint Bowyer, who started with, "It's idiotic." Bowyer was taken out on just the second lap of qualifying in the first five-minute round by Reed Sorenson, who is scheduled to contest just eight events in 2015 and thus had to take big chances on the track to get into the field.

Boyer went on: "There's no sense in being able to try to put on some cute show for whatever the hell this is. There's no reason to be out here. These guys have spent six months working on these cars, busting their butts on these cars. … It's NASCAR's fault for putting us out in the middle of this crap for nothing. We used to come down here and worry about who would set on the front pole in the biggest race of the year. Now all we do is come down here and worry about how a startâ€'andâ€'park like this out of desperation is going to knock us out of the Daytona 500. We've been in meetings for 45 minutes just trying to figure out what in the hell everybody is going to do just so we can make the race. It's stupid. There's no sense in doing this."

Johnson, ever the corporate soldier said, "At some point in time in order to grow the sport, somebody has to be unhappy. I don't know where that falls. Hopefully we can look at facts and stats and say, yes, this is better and it is worth the five cars we lost. If it didn't move the needle, then we should try to rethink things and the five cars we lost wouldn't be worth it." Spoken like someone who is locked into the front row, no?

Kurt Busch, while giving the chaos some thought, actually had a decent suggestion, which was to have each car make four qualifying laps and tally the average speed for those laps, like they do in qualifying at Indianapolis for the "500." That, of course, will never happen, because NASCAR will not emulate anybody, especially if the idea comes from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Besides, NASCAR has the twin, 150-mile "Budweiser Duels" on Thursday evening, which determines the rest of the qualifying order, and which gives us all a chance to witness more on-track mayhem.

Steve O'Donnell, who is NASCAR's executive vice president, tried his best to put a positive spin on Sunday's chaos, saying "certainly there are some challenges on super speedways" and said that the series will confer with fans, drivers and teams about reaction and possible changes.

That's a good start, although polling the drivers who participated in Sunday's orchestrated stupidity and the fans who witnessed it shouldn't take long.

Why it never occurred to anyone down in Daytona Beach that messing with the qualifying format for its biggest race might be less than a good idea is beyond me.

But then again we're talking about The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight here, and it's pretty much standard operating procedure. Peter De Lorenzo/Autoextremist