Much is being said this season about this subject. Rightly so I guess as we have had a record ten qualifying sessions canceled due to rain. What happened? It rained a lot on Fridays. There is a lot of talk that NASCAR should reschedule to Saturday or even Sunday morning in the event of rain on Friday. After all, they have plenty of time available. Do they?
I don't know for sure, but all the Saturday's I've been at the track, everybody look's pretty busy to me. We do know that NASCAR will not have a qualifying session without having a practice first, which makes sense to me. It also makes Saturday more tricky. You have to wedge in at least a one hour practice in addition to at least a two hour qualifying session.
The perception that they have plenty of time could be comming from looking at the schedule and seeing two or three hour's of no car's scheduled to be on the track, or "hey, there's no cars on the TV right now so the team's must not be doing anything". Unless it's an impound race, that's not likely. As far as the driver's go, I am sure there are a lot of sponsor obligations both at and away from the track. Most might say that those shoudn't get in the way of the racing. I would say if not for those obligation's, we night not be racing.
Big time racing has always been a business. You have a product and sell ticket's to folk's to come see it. It has become a much bigger business today. Some say it's a bad thing, some it's a good thing. Me? I say it's a thing. It's here and there will be no going back. I am sure that the driver's would rather be on the track. I am also sure that the team (at some level), believe that these obligation's are one of the most important activity's of the weekend.
So I don't buy in to the "they have time" theory because I don't know, for sure, that they do and neither do most of the people who say they do. But I certainly doubt they do. What we have here is a very unique weather pattern. An anomaly. Why turn the qualifying process upside down because of it. The next several years could well go back to a few rain out's or none at all. Some say that lining up by point's isn't fair. Of course it could be that their favorite driver is in a position where it hurts him. But it's as fair as it can get. If they line up by points and your not in the race, you need to work harder. As one well respected (at least by me) poster said on the Speed boards, "Big time racing isn't t-ball, not everyone get's to bat".
The Geeze
Big time racing has always been a business. You have a product and sell ticket's to folk's to come see it. It has become a much bigger business today. Some say it's a bad thing, some it's a good thing. Me? I say it's a thing. It's here and there will be no going back. I am sure that the driver's would rather be on the track. I am also sure that the team (at some level), believe that these obligation's are one of the most important activity's of the weekend.
So I don't buy in to the "they have time" theory because I don't know, for sure, that they do and neither do most of the people who say they do. But I certainly doubt they do. What we have here is a very unique weather pattern. An anomaly. Why turn the qualifying process upside down because of it. The next several years could well go back to a few rain out's or none at all. Some say that lining up by point's isn't fair. Of course it could be that their favorite driver is in a position where it hurts him. But it's as fair as it can get. If they line up by points and your not in the race, you need to work harder. As one well respected (at least by me) poster said on the Speed boards, "Big time racing isn't t-ball, not everyone get's to bat".
The Geeze
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