February 14th, 2012 
T.C. It’s floating around the web today that IndyCar’s first year race director Beaux Barfield is planning on using qualifying heats to set the field at Iowa this season. The plan, revealed to the Associated Press, is to test the format for possible full time use in 2013. The proposed procedure will include three 30 lap heats, with starting spots determined by practice speeds. My question to you, is if you think this is something NASCAR should consider.
The only race where NASCAR uses a similar format is at the Daytona 500. Qualifying sets the front row, and than every other starting position is determined by where drivers finish in their respective Duel race. Every other race uses the standard single-car run procedure.
In recent years NASCAR has tinkered with qualifying to make it more exciting and hopefully improve TV ratings. They’ve made changes to the go-or-go-homer qualifying and to the qualifying order. Outside of knowing what TNI regular reader Neon thinks (he has suggested qualifying heats many times) do you think qualifying heat races could be the answer?
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Would certainly be interesting. Maybe qualify the top 30 or so cars and then have a last chance race to fill the field, rather than risking crunching a bunch of cars in a heat race.
why not? more racing that means something is always good.
I wish the TV people would realize this… ‘it’s the race, stupid.’
-W
It would make things challenging for the go-or-go-homers. Having to go through a heat race would significantly raise their budgets for tires, crews and (probable) wrecked cars.
But that said, I’d love to have heat races to watch each week.
If it were my decision, a general formula would be to qualify 56 cars, then do two heats of 28 and make them long enough for one scheduled pit sans any yellows and advance the top 15 in each. Then do a LCQ of all 26 non-advancers for roughly 40 miles and advance the top 3. Then make the main long enough for two scheduled pits sans yellows with a 33 car field. Adjust as needed for each track. Everyone loves the starts, restarts and “last 20″. This gives four starts and “last 20″ where we today have only one.
I’d rather see qualifying similar to F1 where they have flying laps. The only problem I can see is that NASCAR has more cars attempting to make the field than positions available.
One solution could be to do reverse qualifying. Flying laps for an hour, top 1/3 qualifies with the fast time getting the pole and so forth back to say top 15. The rest of the field goes out for 40 minutes and the next top 1/3 sets positions 15 through 30. The rest of the field gets a last chance to qualify during a 30 minute period which sets the 30 to 43 spots with the rest not qualifying.
OR the rest are used as fill in if a car fails post qualifying inspection.
It really depends on where NASCAR wants to build the excitemnt; Go or Go Homers vs Pole Position.
How about this format for every race but the Daytona 500? Lock in the top 25 and they must qualify on time to determine starting position. They can start no worse than 25th. Eliminate the past champions provisonal. They are “past” champions for a reason, as most are well “past” their prime if they actually need to use this. Run a 30 lap consi for everyone 26th and back in points. So no pit stop is necessary. Just balls to the wall and stand on it for 30 laps. This race is run right after qualifying for the top 25 is doone. Where you finish in the consi race determines where you start on Sunday. Winner starts 26th and 18th place starts 43. Handicapping the consi race would go by points and just to spice things up a bit fans could vote at the track to determine if the consi field is started straight up by the current point standings with the highest point person on the pole,or if the field is inverted. Wouldn’t it be cool to see the fastest guys have to come from the back in 30 laps at Bristol?? One exception would be that if you started and parked the week before you automatically start in the rear of the consi field. so if you want to start and park again you at least have to race your way in from the consi. Only the winner is paid – $30 grand, but all consi qualifiers get a set of tires and a tank of fuel courtesy of NASCAR.
I’d like to see heat races & then cut the corresponding number of laps off the main event. I’ve always been a proponent of shorter races.
The closest thing NASCAR has to heat races currently are next weeks Gatorade Duels. NASCARs Daytona-only convoluted top 35 lock-in, qualy speed fall back, provisional, duel 1 or 2 order, etc has a formula that rivals a genetic engineering matrix.
The Duels are a lot of fun and once again I’m looking forward to going down. Having Speedweeks a week later this year sure has made for a loooooong Winter.
Use 20-20 format. Top 20 set by finishing order of previous weeks race. They are in. Last weeks 21-43, followed by go homers, followed by new entries line up for qualifier. Length would be just short of a full fuel run to eliminate any gas mileage bull. First 20 across line take positions 21-40. Remaining three slots are provisionals (whatever sanctioning body wants that to be).
Everyone who enters races, either Sunday (1-20), Saturday (44+) or both (21-43)
Incentive to win goes up with additional bonus of starting on pole next week and first pit stall selection.
Stupidity on Sunday is rewarded with running a qualifier next Saturday with no chance to win the pole with a trick setup or bonsai run. May not even make the big show at all.
Bottom line is it’s all a out racing to get in the show-either last Sunday or this Saturday.
Being old school and being in and around this sport since 64 I can’t help but believe that the 43 fastest on any given day race and the rest go home. It’s just the KISS theory. The top 35 rule is just as beneficial to the fans as is this insane points trading/selling. Lets just get back to what racing is,was,should be. That just might bring about the parity joke NASCAR keeps tearing apart with constant changes that seldom make the “SHOW” any better. We aren’t F1, we aren’t Trans AM, we don’t need engineers, we don’t need seven post rigs, we just need crew chiefs and mechanics free to run the cars, we need drivers back driving, not driving with what NASCAR has dictated to be their idea of what is the best for that day or race.
How about this, windowlicker? I’d have three 40-50 mile qualifying races and a 300 mile final race in intermediate ovals and superspeedways, and 25-30 mile qualifying races and a 200 mile final race in short tracks.
A few races would remain like now – Daytona in February, Talladega in April, Charlotte in May, Sonoma in June, Watkins Glen and Indianapolis in July, Bristol in August and the final race in November.
What they should do is four fifteen lap heats, five if over 50 cars, invert starting spots by points, with any new cars at the back. Qualify the top eight from each heat if four heats and top seven if five heats, then do a b feature lined up by heat race finishing order. Have three provisionals for the top three in points not qualified. Cut the main event in half. The invert would make good heat races, b mains would be great, and there would be hard racing with a shortened main event. Also impound the heat race qualifiers and b main qualifiers cars. Give them a timed 5 minutes before a main to work on cars. No tire changes til the a main. Would make an exciting event and bo changes no changes besides fuel between heat and b feature.
This is obviously too much to do EVERY week for 36 weeks. Pick 4 races, the Winston Million races, and pay bonuses for winning heat races there. Then $1 Million for winning 3 of 4, just like back in the day.
RAEckart: Did you just drop a Winston Million reference? Nice…
I gotta say, I’m surprised so many of you have such elaborate qualifying plans. You all have spent some serious time putting these ideas together.
FWIW Daytona Speedweeks is (as Mark Martin would say) an “awesome” deal if you consider the number of starts and finishes in a relatively compact span.
Next Thursday, when the Duels are run, you get a race w/ a start, pit stops and a finish. A nice break to grab a bite, make your pix and do it all over again. Think “heat races”.
Fridays “night” truck race is usually one of the best. The IROC used to also be Friday as an added bonus, but sadly fell by the wayside a few years back…darn!
Catch Cup practice Sat morn followed by the NW 300 miler.
All this at a fraction of the cost to see just the 500. For that one I’m already 500 miles away back home to watch it on the DVR.
I suspect if you went down starting this w/e for pole day, Bud Shootout and ARCA you could get some beach and Orlando (etc) time in between. The weather rarely disappoints.
Sounds like I work for DIS or Florida tourism, right? Nah, otherwise I would suggest staying for the 500…
Interestingly enough, I think that the current qualifing system in NASCAR is fine. I even like the top 35 rule. Let’s face it, without the top 35 rule, the only way a top 20-25 car does not make the race is if they have bad luck during qualifing. I don’t see how it would be good for anybody to have a team miss a race due to bad luck during qualifing. AND…watching teams fight to stay in the top 35 is an added bonus. The one exception for me, is that I would like Spint Cup qualifing at road courses to be grouped like they started doing in Nationwide.
Just to expand on my previous post…assuming a 60 mile pit window…a heat with 1 scheduled pit is about 120 miles. So 240 total miles raced for 2 heats.
One LCQ of 40 miles brings the total miles raced to 280.
The main with 2 scheduled pits is about 180 miles, bringing the total miles raced to about 460.
So roughly the same amount of time needed to do it all, a little less total miles, 4 starts 4 finishes instead of 1 start 1 finish.
It’s ‘less expensive’ for teams since heat qualifiers run 120 miles in the heat plus 180 miles in the main for a total of 300 miles for the race. LCQ cars would have another 40 miles for a total of 340 miles run. Non finalists run no more than 120 heat plus 40 LCQ for 160 total.
There needs to be a change of some sort. Evidently points no longer mean anything beyond a championship if Nascar allows teams to buy sell and trade them. Why even have a top 35 or a second and third for that matter. Its become the WWF and how fitting the celebrity starter is a WWF superstar. So funny. Teams should show up to daytona then Nascar tells them whose in the race and on Sunday the 26th make an announcement as to whom they’ve decided is the winner and where everyone has finished. The only money teams will spend will be on rounds of golf, cocktails at the tiki bars, and a day at Disney. Then the fun begins again in Phoenix and Vegas.
I like the changes that Beaux Barfield is making in IndyCar. He has come along way since I used to compete w/ him in SCCA Spec Racer (formerly Sports Renault)in the SCCA SE Div. However, I thought it was odd that IndyCar (if I remember correctly) is dumping the short lived (last year only)Twin 275 miler Double Header at the Texas Motor Speedway, in favor of a traditional single race.
If you have not been to an Indycar road course race within the last few years, they already use a pretty niffty knock-out qualifying format (ie F1 only they do it in groups)that IMO works well.
As TC’s states in is post, BB is looking at doing the heat deal at the Iowa bullring. So maybe the Indy ovals could in fact benefit from heats to replace single car qually….as would CUP imo.
Heat Racing has worked all over North America on most every Saturday night short track.
It has also for Motorcycle racing for 105 years. Others may elaborate better than I have here.
May I suggest an off the cuff ‘under the hood’ poll of the Drivers. And an open poll of Nascar fans.
Quite frankly. Many fans are already pissed off of the many rule changes preceeding and during any given season of late.
In spite of that some marketing executives believe most racing fans may fall in line for that idea.
It’s been said that todays racing fans are tired of 300 – 400 lap / mile races in general. Older fans like Me may not like an over night changes.
But with recent changes in the car design and the repave / total re-grooming of tracks large and small the racing has indeed changed. For the most part, fans are not happy.
Of course Nascar as an entity would be totaly against this in the begining. But their business model may eventualy grasp this idea as the next perfect marketing idea. As always it is about the dollars. IndyCar may have beat Nascar to the punch on this one.
As for me. Poll me as in favor.
I am a Michigan local. It would make my track much more intriguing.
Dwiltone
How about this? Everyone runs qualifying laps. #26 through 43 line up on qualifying times. The remaining cars run a 10 or 20-lapper, depending on track size. Tracks 2 miles or more go 10 laps, others go 20. Bottom 13 line up 13-25. The last 12 run a 20-lapper and line up in order of finish. Of course, how many crew chiefs would opt to qualify in the bottom 17 so they don’t risk wrecking the car?
I guess you could keep the T35 rule: any T35 car that doesn’t qualify in the top 43 gets to bump the slowest go-or-go-homer.
I’m not sure that the idea of tweaking qualifying would mean much to non-fans, it IS sort of a good topic for discussion.
Here is an idea:
- Top 20 in points are locked into the main race.
- Qualifying is held on Friday for all the teams. The top 20 in owner points PLUS the top 12 fastest qualifiers of everyone else is exempt from the qualifying race.
- The remaining cars enter a last chance race on Saturday. The race is 100 miles, 100 laps or 1/4 the race distance (whichever of the three is the lowest). The top 10 finishers qualify for the race.
- The lineup from 1-33 would be set by qualifying speed among the 32 pre-qualifying drivers plus the last chance race winner (although the winner cannot start higher than 13th or he would already be in the race). Spots 34-42 would be based on the other drivers in the last chance race, in finishing order. That is to give extra benefit to winning – they would get a much higher starting spot.
- The 43rd spot would go to a past champions’ provisional, if necessary (more common since they would have to be outside the top 20, not top 35, in owner points), with a limit of 8 uses per season. If there is no eligible psat champion not yet qualified, the spot goes to the fastest on qualifying time not yet in the field.