Jeff Gordon’s day of celebration overshadowed by group qualifying debacle

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Under different methods the indelible image from the weekend would be of Jeff Gordon exiting his iconic No. 24 car fists raised in the air in celebration of capturing the pole position in what is his final Daytona 500 start.

Instead, people will be discussing in the days to come a convoluted qualifying format that directly contributed to the zaniness of drivers darting across the grass and around one another on pit road in an act that resembled drunken circus clowns. And don’t forget later stopping entirely on pit road to partake in the NASCAR version of chicken.

Making the entire matter distressing is the fact that what transpired Sunday at Daytona International Speedway wasn’t unexpected. Actually quite the opposite with drivers having predicted the exact scenario that unfolded in the days and weeks leading into Daytona Speedweeks.

Everyone was fully aware what was to come when NASCAR announced group qualifying was replacing the longstanding tradition of single-car runs, as had been the case since 1959. Multiple cars on the track during qualifying works splendidly everywhere but Daytona or Talladega Superspeedway, the other restrictor-plate venue on the schedule, where two cars working in tandem are exceedingly faster than a car circling by itself.

Accordingly, drivers must have a drafting partner if they are to post a respectable time good enough for them to race. It’s the laws of the wild applied to NASCAR: A pack is stronger than a lone unit, which by itself is vulnerable.

And yet group qualifying at Daytona leads to the embarrassing moments such as those that occurred Sunday. Incidents which by themselves would not have been significant, but added together made NASCAR and its marquee event a laughingstock and further outraged its participants, who were already disgruntled by a format they viewed as absurd.

The easy piñata for Sunday’s debacle is NASCAR, a sanctioning body whose whims continually shift directions with such frequency it gives the perception officials are desperate to do anything to reclaim past glory and the lofty heights of popularity the sport once enjoyed.

Fans had understandably grown bored of the tedious nature of watching cars circle the 2.5-mile Daytona speedway one-by-one. And with group qualifying proving popular last season, NASCAR instituted the format for the Great American Race this year.

But while NASCAR deserves culpability, the blame should be dispersed equally to the teams.

As they do in all aspects of motorsports, drivers and crew chiefs sought an edge and were not above resorting to chicanery. Tactics like impeding the progress of faster cars and stopping on pit road until the final seconds were both seen Sunday.

A desperate Reed Sorenson, a journeyman driver with a small team who needed all the help he could find to qualify for the Daytona 500, maneuvered to block Clint Bowyer just minutes into qualifying. The end result saw both of their cars junked and an upset Bowyer directing his anger first towards Sorenson, then later elsewhere.

“It’s NASCAR’s fault for putting us out here in the middle of this crap for nothing,” Bowyer said. “We used to come down here and worry about who was going to sit on the front row and the pole for the biggest race of the year and now all we do is come down here and worry about how a (small team) like (Sorenson) out of desperation is going to knock us out of the Daytona 500.

“There’s no sense in doing this.”

Though entertaining, Bowyer’s rant misses the point. While NASCAR may have devised the system, officials didn’t instruct Sorenson to execute an ill-advised move to cut Bowyer off. Drivers make the choice to be as aggressive as they want, be it in qualifying or Thursday’s twin qualifying races where there will be just as much madness.

Yes, the format may be flawed, but so too was the previous method to set the Daytona 500 row. Not only was it tedious, but a common gripe among drivers was how little impact they had on their times.

In a sport with a constant balance of man vs. machine, it was all the latter at Daytona where drivers said a monkey could get behind the wheel and mash the gas just as effectively as they did. What they wanted was to have more control of their fate.

“This had been one of the easiest days I’ve had all day long,” Gordon said. “Go out there, hold it wide-open, run a couple laps. It’s all about the team, the car, all the preparation they put into it. All that hard work still goes into this effort, but I play a bigger role, the spotter plays a bigger role. There’s just so much more strategy in trying to play this chess match and the wait game.

“It’s literally like playing chess at 200 miles an hour. It’s pretty crazy.”

And as second-place qualifier Jimmie Johnson admitted, when the system works to your advantage you’re in favor of it. When it doesn’t you tend to make excuses. It’s likely not a coincidence that the loudest detractors, Harvick, Stewart and Bowyer, all were among the first to be eliminated Sunday.

“When you hear from Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, that’s passion,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president. “This is the biggest race of the year -- they want to make the race. We understand that.

“There are ways we can make adjustments, we will. Not everyone’s going to be happy. That’s part of this. Cars have always historically gone home from Daytona. That’s tough. We know how big this race is.”

What makes the issue confounding is that there is no clear-cut solution. Group qualifying in its current state, where teams over-think themselves and officials lack the heavy-handedness to deal with the subterfuge, isn’t working. Nor does single-car qualifying, which could be offered as a cure for insomnia.

The only thing clear is that a day of celebration was anything but and was instead a day of embarrassment.