August 5, 2009
By Nick Blake
The rain came again this past Friday at Pocono, and as a result it awarded another front row starting position to Tony Stewart. For the fifth time this season, qualifying was rained out, and for the fourth time, Stewart was granted the first position. (However, he went to a backup car last time out at Pocono and started at the rear. The same occurrence happened again this week, but the result wasn’t as lucky. 10th place.) Rainouts have been the reason for all of Stewart's and Jeff Gordon’s first place starts this season, neither driver has earned a Coors Light pole award.
Now I’m not taking away from Gordon or Stewart because their “given” poles due to rainouts, in a way they did earn it, they were (Gordon) and are (Stewart) leading the overall points standings. They’ve worked hard to achieve the success they're seeing right now.
But come on, isn’t it getting a little tiring to see the same group of drivers starting at the front when qualifying is canceled?
It’s tiring to me. There are cars sprinkled throughout the field that are sometimes faster than the first place car, but are mired back in the pack and depending on the track, need to use creative pit strategy to make up ground. Sometimes the fastest car may never make it to Victory Lane because they tried too hard getting to the front.
Also, cars that start up front won’t always finish there. After starting second at Daytona for the Coke Zero 400, Jeff Gordon finished 24th. Kurt Busch started second at Martinsville earlier this season, he finished 18th.
Rainouts have been a critical part of NASCAR this season; Mike Bliss won his first race in four years via rainout. Joey Logano, David Reutimann and Matt Kenseth all became first time winners thanks to a rainout. Kenseth isn’t a first time winner, but he won his first Daytona 500, and it was also Jack Roush’s first Daytona 500 win.
But as for qualifying, rainouts have provided no surprises as to who starts up front, who starts in the back, who races, and who goes home. I love watching Knockout Qualifying. Remember earlier this year at Dover when Tony Raines outran Brad Keselowski? The Talladega winner went home while Tony Raines, the last car to qualify, driving for Front Row Motorsports and winless in 136 career Cup starts, made the show. To me that is excitement in qualifying.
But rainouts take all of that out of the equation. Had that Dover qualifying session rainout, Raines would have gone home, Keselowski would have raced.
So us NASCAR fans as a whole are put in this box. Do we want to see the points leader start on the pole every week, or do we want some parody among the starting grid?
For those in favor of the latter, I’ve got a great solution.
Why not line ‘em up how they drew?
The qualifying order becomes the starting grid. This occurrence happened most recently at the 2009 Sprint All Star Race Showdown, when qualifying was rained out and Kirk Shelmerdine was actually awarded the pole, with Carl Long on the outside of the front row. Both dropped to the back of the pack, giving the front row to David Stremme and Dave Blaney, still an interesting starting pair, one that you would never see on the front row on Sundays. The entire lineup was jumbled up for that race, Scott Riggs, then driving for Tommy Baldwin Racing, started 5th. Brian Vickers started 31st. In a race like the Showdown, it’s only 40 laps long, so you can’t really get the full effect of what starting based on qualifying draw can do for a whole race.
If this rule, plus the addition of “shootout style” double file restarts were combined together, imagine how frantic the first half of a race would be? You wouldn’t even have to search the track to see competitive racing. And you wouldn’t have to wait for the last 30 laps to see it either.
Imagine a lineup where it’s Jeff Burton and Dale Earnhardt Jr. starting up front, or any combination your heart desires, that’s the beauty of simply picking a number out of a hat once qualifying is rained out, anything’s possible.
As for the top 35 rule, that would be the only thing that would likely remain the same. Those on outside would go home as normal, but the ones that would make it in, instead of starting at the back, they too have a chance of starting in position 1.
Soak all of that in, (no pun intended) because when the rain falls on Friday, the only winner is Mother Nature.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
Comments or suggestions are encouraged. Please contact Nick Blake at 
