Waltrip On The Pole?
It looks like someone inverted the field of drivers when looking at the starting lineup for the Nextel NASCAR race in Talladega today. Sitting in the number one position, none other than Michael Waltrip in the 55 NAPA car.
How in the world did that happen you ask. It’s actually quite simple. It’s an example of how racing is supposed to work. NASCAR has become so image concerned, blatantly catering to the big budget teams, that new teams, or even worse, single car teams, have little to no chance of making races on a weekly basis. Why? Because NASCAR has a silly rule that says if you’re in the top 35 in the overall point standings, you’re guaranteed a starting position, every week.
How silly is that!? For baseball that would be like saying since the New York Yankees have won 26 championships, 39 pennants, 14 division titles and have appeared in post-season play 42 times, they’re always guaranteed a spot in the World Series every year. Would that ever happen? Of course not. Mainly because if you don’t earn your spot on the field, you don’t get to play.
But, with NASCAR, the system is set up to favor the winning team. If they don’t work as hard as the other teams, that doesn’t matter. They’ll get a bye and end up in the race anyway. That’s exactly what happened with the race today. It’s an impound race which means once the field was set after qualifying, no one could touch their cars. As a result, the teams that know they’re in the show, didn’t care about qualifying. All they’re concerned about is race day. However, for teams that had to qualify, they worked hard and blew everyone else off the speed chart. I say way to go Mikey, and every other “go or go home” driver who made it into the race today. Even Jacques Villeneuve, whom I don’t think should be racing today because he has little to no experience in a stock car, I say way to go since he qualified 6th.
But, here’s another rub. Boris Said, who’s in a single car team, qualified 10th. One would think Said is very happy. But, he’s not. Why? Because he had to load up and go home. How in the world did that happen? He qualified 10th out of a field of 43 and he has to go home? That’s because he doesn’t hold one of the guaranteed spots for the race. In other words, people like Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, or any other driver in the top 12 in points who decided to blow off qualifying, still made the race. But Boris Said, who went faster than any one of them, has to go home. And yes, just so I won’t show my bias too much here, even Matt Kenseth, the driver of the 17 car which I am a fan of, if he didn’t drive fast enough, then he too should go home.
How stupid is that. In my opinion, if you don’t drive fast enough to get into the race, then you don’t get to race on Sunday. Come on NASCAR, lets stop penalizing the little guy and stop sucking up to the guy with the big bucks. For the NASCAR officials who can’t figure out why their fan base is on shaky ground, give me a call, I’ll give you a few pointers as to what’s going on.
Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus
