i want to get evervbody's thoughts on what nascar should do if during the chase a race's quals are rained out.
I'd like to give Ron a serious answer to his question. I may be a stick in the mud, but I think he has a real valid point.
Before 2001, it was highly rare for qualifying for a Cup race to be rained out. That is because they always had all day Saturday in which to get quals in. Since Fox decided they wanted to "package" happy hour for broadcast during Saturday, this has severely impacted whether they can get qualifying in if there is rain on Friday. The new two segments of happy hour are more important to TV than qualifying, which just seems wrong to me. This is a real pet peeve of mine! :evil:
Case in point was fall Charlotte two years ago. Humpy always wants quals on Wed/Thurs night and they were interrupted by rain. We were heading down there for the race and they had rescheduled them for Thursday morning that year. There was a little rain on Thursday morning, so NASCAR cancelled quals entirely by 8 a.m.. I remember being ballistic over this at the time! Here the race was not until Sunday afternoon, so they legitimately had all day (and night) Thursday, Friday AND Saturday to get Cup quals done. Yet NASCAR cancelled them and set the field on points 3 days before the race! I felt it gave an unfair advantage to the points leader at the time. As we know, many of the popular drivers are not good qualifiers (i.e., Kenseth, Earnhardt, J. Burton). In 2002, about 3 of the last 6 races were set on points due to NASCAR cancelling quals because TV didn't want to hold them past Friday. To me, this materially affected the outcome of the 2002 championship. Tony Stewart is not a consistent qualifer and yet he got to start up front in all of those races (as did Mark Martin, who also doesn't win a lot of poles these days).
So here we come to this "manufactured" championship playoff this year. So, say Jeff Gordon continues to be the points leader after Richmond, will it be fair that he gets the pole awarded to him 3 out of the final 10 races if quals are rained out? Will it be fair that the top 10 in the "chase" are starting in the top 10 for several races because quals are cancelled prematurely by NASCAR? Talk about stacking the deck!
I guess my opinion (in my own convoluted way) is that NASCAR should make every effort possible to get quals in for the last 10 races (as they should the entire season). If this means running quals as late as Saturday evening, they ought to make that effort. If this whole deal is SO important to NBC, they can record them and play back highlights of them during the pre-race show or something. Of course, we all know the entire series has turned into nothing but a made-for-TV show since 2001, so this will never happen. But that sure seems like the fair thing to me. Give the drivers outside the top ten a legitimate chase to compete for a top-10 starting position, instead of artificially giving yet another advantage to the guys already sitting in the top 10. If NASCAR really wants to give all teams an equal chance to some TV coverage and the win, this is what I think they ought to do.
Okay, my rant is over now. Sorry...
Cheryl
