The Thursday before the Coke 600 is always a very important day for a select group of drivers and teams.  Tonight is Pole Night for Sunday’s Coke 600 and every driver wants to be in the field for the home race.  The entry list shows thirteen drivers that are currently on the outside looking in, and only eight will make the race.  Those drivers are Tony Raines, Patrick Carpentier, Jon Wood, Ken Schrader, Jeff Green, Sterling Marlin, Kyle Petty, Stanton Barrett, Johnny Sauter, Sam Hornish Jr., Joe Nemechek, A.J. Allmendinger, and J.J. Yeley.  This segment of qualifying has become a source of drama every week, and SPEED even dedicates a weekly 30 minute show to it.

These teams spend the balance of their practice time leading up to qualifying doing nothing but working on getting the car to go as fast as possible for two laps.  The fields have become so tight in terms of qualifying that these teams have to find every thousandth of a second.  To give you an idea, Johnny Sauter missed the Darlington race by 0.059 seconds and Ken Schrader missed the Richmond race by 0.018 seconds.  Combined they both only missed the show by 0.077, that isn’t even a tenth of a second! 

I’ve only had to experience missing a race one time in my career, and I hope to never have that feeling again.  The team I was working for at the time went out fairly early in qualifying, and as the sun went down, so did the lap times.  We were the first car to miss the field.  I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.  I knew going in that we weren’t guaranteed in the show, but I never once even thought there was a chance we wouldn’t race.  I’ve only felt it once, but alot of these teams deal with this on a regular basis.

Besides the horrible feeling you get, think about the money lost by teams that don’t make the races.  Between wages, entry fees, hotels, travel, fuel costs, and other expenses, it can cost a quarter of a million or more a weekend to field a competitive Cup Series team.  $250,000 is a lot of money to spend just to load your racecar before the race even starts.  These teams miss out on any possible winnings for the weekend and it is a serious detriment to sponsor relations.  I have no idea if this was true or not and there isn’t really any way to confirm it, but I heard a rumor last year that a certain sponsor was making a certain team pay back a portion of the sponsorship dollars for missed races.

As much as it sucks being a go or go-homer, NASCAR at least guarantees the top 35 a spot in the race.  Before last weekend’s Bristol race, NHRA Pro Stock driver Jeg Coughlin was second in the points and missed the 16 car field by 0.003 seconds.  Talk about a bad day.

SPEED is airing qualifying for the Coke 600 tonight starting at 7PM.  The go or go home drivers go out at the end of the session.  If you are in the mood for a little drama before the weekend, I’d recommend tuning in.

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