Confusion reigns about Talladega qualifying

NASCAR's new qualifying format put Brian Vickers on the pole at Talladega Superspeedway but left many drivers angry and confused, and three full-time teams failed to make Sunday's race. Kevin Harvick called the format "the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life," and Kyle Busch said heat races should be used to set the field at superspeedways. Dale Earnhardt Jr. called for a return to single-car qualifying at Daytona and Talladega instead of the group formats, and Jeff Gordon tweeted, "Wow never been so frustrated & confused trying to qualify for a race. Not the way we intended to start the weekend." Drivers admitted when they arrived at Talladega that they didn't understand the qualifying format, and it showed as there were no clear strategies throughout the field. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. [Reed Sorenson] and Justin Allgaier, … full-time Sprint Cup Series drivers, failed to make the field.

NASCAR cut the field in half for the first round of qualifying, when 23 cars had five minutes to make their qualifying lap. Nobody wanted to be the first driver on the track, and many sat on pit road waiting for traffic to pull out. The first drivers were beat by the clock as they tried to time it to make their fast lap at the end of the five minutes, but their times were not counted because many of them failed to cross the start/finish line in the allowable time.

"I thought being the last car in line would be beneficial for us. We had Jeff Gordon leading the pack there I thought we would have a good shot at putting a good lap in, but my spotter was telling me, 'Hey, you have 30-seconds to get across the start-finish line' as we were entering Turn 3," Stenhouse said. "(Gordon) kept slowing the pack down and we didn't get a good lap and never got across the start-finish line in time. My spotter was giving me the information I needed and I wish (Gordon's) would have been doing the same."

The bottom of the field consisted of championship contenders Denny Hamlin, Harvick, Joey Logano and Busch and many other NASCAR heavyweights. Tony Stewart will start 37th and is followed by Hamlin, Harvick, Logano, Busch, Kyle Larson and Gordon. Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth will drop to the back of the field because Keselowski changed his alternator and Kenseth changed his engine. Associated Press