Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog

Today Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition, made an announcement about a change in the qualifying rules in their annual “State of NASCAR Address”.

No they haven’t eliminated the top 35 rule, but they have made the provision that all of the non-top 35ers will qualify together in one group at the end of qualifying.

At the end? Are you kidding me? They have to qualify after everyone else who is locked into the field already has qualified? Huh? That does not make sense.

Let’s take the Boris Said example from this past season. Boris peeled off a screamer of a lap at Daytona and was on the pole, with but a few people left to qualify - none of whom would have been able to knock him off the pole either - when the skies opened up and down came the rain. NASCAR cancelled the rest of qualifying and set the field on owner’s points thus knocking Boris, not only off the pole but out of the race entirely because he was one of the go-or-go-homers that are out of the top 35 in owner points.

Apply this situation to the new set of rules and nothing has changed, all of the “go-or-go-homers” would still have to go home because they are qualifying at the end of qualifying and that is when the rain started. NASCAR’s solution to fix the “Boris Said problem” still wouldn’t have fixed it, and he still would have been sent home after the new rules were in place.

This happened twice to Boris last year, and NASCAR’s solution to make the “go-or-go-homers” qualify at the end of the qualifying session and under the new rules he still would have missed those races.

NASCAR’s rules change is a step in the right direction but what they need to do is to let all of the “go-or-go-homers” qualify first, that way if the rain comes pouring down the top 35 are still in and positions 36-43 are already settled.

NASCAR is right in addressing the problem, but their solution is not right.

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Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images

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