Big fields guarantee qualifying drama this weekend

      It’s Daytona speedweek and we have drama waiting to happen in every series that returns this weekend. It’s time for The Real season to kick off and it looks like it’s going to kick off with a bang before the racing even starts.

     Every series that is scheduled to race this weekend has a higher entry list, than the number of spots available for the actual race. I will go over the implications of each qualifying session in order from Wednesday to Saturday. Today I talk about the next two days of on track qualifying .

       Wednesday kicks off NASCAR Cup Series qualifying which sets the front row, 1st and 2nd position, for the Daytona 500. The rest of the positions determine the starting order for the duel races. The duel races are two 150 mile races that help set the grid for the Daytona 500. The duel lineups are again set by single car qualifying speeds with odd numbers starting in duel 1, and even numbers starting in duel 2. We have 42 cars going for 40 positions and 6 of those cars don’t have a charter.  The 36 (Kaz Grala), 44 (TBD on driver), 60 (David Regan), 62 (Anthony Alfredo), 78 (BJ McLeod), and 84 (Jimmie Johnson) all have to qualify their way into the Great American Race. With there being no practice before either single car qualifying or the duel races…the pressure is on. 

       The top 2 highest single car qualifiers out of the non charter teams lock into the 500 and unless they sit on the front row, they are then just racing for starting spot like everyone else. The rest of the non charter teams now have to race in the duels against each other for the last two spot, rather than looking at it as a test session. These duels always deliver surprises as even recent as last year, we saw last year that the money team was able to qualify for the 500 after a multi car crash wiped out Austin Hill who was the driver of the 62 that time. What made it more crazy is the fact that The Money Team didn’t even complete a lap around single car qualifying due to a issue that the car had and had to be credited with a dead last qualifying effort.

     Now that we have the go or go home cars accounted for, let’s go over why the duels are just as important to the locked in cars as the ones that aren’t. Positions 3-40 are set by how you finish in the duels, with duel 1 finishing order setting the inside of the grid and duel 2 setting the outside of the grid. Not only that but this is the first real test session of the year for teams to see what kind of adjustments are needed, along with the duels realistically being the largest pack racing for Cup series until the race itself. Even though the front row is locked in, if they crash out of this race they would then have to start at the rear for the 500 and nobody wants that. 

      Wednesday is important for different reasons and Thursday is the biggest day of the week (Sunday starting a new week but you know what I mean). A lot of pressure is on for the next two days as teams have been spending at least the whole offseason preparing for what lies ahead.

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