Robert Yates, Come On Down
Saturday, October 7th, 2006 3:01pm CDT
By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
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[thumb:379:l:s=1:l=x]In qualifying for tomorrow’s UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega David Gilliland - no, that’s not a typo - took the top honors for his first career Bud Pole award and ticket to race in the Bud Shootout next February at Daytona. Just so he wouldn’t feel lonely up there, Dale Jarrett decided he might as well join him and took the outside spot.
All this qualifying nonsense, and today was complete nonsense, comes after the teams we told this morning at 6:30AM by NASCAR that the plates being handed out would be reduced in size. All this after last night NASCAR said they weren’t worried by it as practice laps topped 198mph.
While this may be a plate race, the effort has to at least give a glimmer of hope and a smile to the Yates camp amongst all the frowns as of late.
David Gilliland’s hot lap yesterday was 198.224mph, which came during the first practice. It was only good enough for fourth in that session, and Jeff Gordon lead it with a lap of 198.689mph.
To put the change NASCAR bombed the teams with this morning into perspective, which gave them no time to react or make any predictable adjustments, David’s pole winning effort was 191.712mph. Just over 7mph slower than his best practice lap.
In other qualifying news, Hendrick swept the second row with Johnson third and Gordon fourth.
Greg Biffle was 5th, and the only other driver to top 190mph. Both Gilliland and Jarrett topped 191mph.
To sum up the attempt at qualifying best, we look to none other than Dale Jr.
“I’d like to have a little bit of [expletive] practice, you know, to figure [it] out,” Earnhardt said before storming off to the NASCAR hauler to voice his complaint. “We have to guess on the gear, and I am a second off of what I ran by myself [Friday].
For the record, Junior qualified 33rd.
While NASCAR should be commended for their thoughts toward safety, with a Chase going on it just isn’t right to drop a bombshell on these guys without any practice with it. Even a brief 30 minutes, or whatever.
Robin Pemberton and Jim Hunter said flat out that they intended to not allow the teams any notice. They cited their reason as they didn’t want teams rushing around in Charlotte to figure out something new to compensate for the effects of the new plate size. OK, I can see that. Make it as level of a bomb drop as possible, and stick it to all the teams at once. Make it as fair on the little guy as it is to the powerhouse’s. Got ya.
However, in the concern of safety, is it also not a safety concern that even the slight reduction of horses is going to affect the handling of the cars? Bad handling in a pack at a plate track is bad ju-ju. However, it must not be a concern, or as big of a concern as the increased speeds were.
With all the safety improvements to the cars, I don’t think a 3 or 4 mph increase is going to make that big of a difference. Either way, hitting the wall at 195mph or 198mph is still going to hurt. If it really is that big of a factor, the least they could have done was let these guys run a quick practice.
The positive side of this is that the teams are professionals, and the best in the business at what they do. Regardless of the shell-shock from something dropped their way, they’re going to adapt and overcome to go racing.
Filed Under: Nascar, Nextel Cup
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