Daytona 500 Qualifying
The qualifying event held Saturday for the Daytona 500 was a refreshing beginning to the 1999 racing season. The big surprise? Tony Stewart. Not only do we have several rookies vying for positions in the big race, we have a rookie starting on the front row. The old sandbaggers were out in full force, with qualifying speeds a lot higher than last years. I guess you can't really call them sandbaggers though, due to the difference in the set-ups from practice and testing to the actual qualifying attempt. All of the drivers that made good qualifying attempts were alluding to the fact that Jeff Gordon still had to run, so they didn't think their speeds would hold up. They were right. Jeff picked up the pace where he left off last season, starting off with the pole position for the first race with a qualifying speed of 195.067. If these speeds continue to rise, NASCAR will have to make the restrictor plate apertures smaller, or they will have egg on their faces. The engine builders and crew chiefs have been searching desperately for ways to get more speed, and this year was no exception.
A lot of drivers alluded to the fact that the track was very rough. You could see the cars bouncing around during their qualifying attempts. A lot of them were bottoming out, causing sparks to fly. The roughest part of the track is the inside groove at the bottom. The track is owned by ISC (Bill France), and is another example of NASCAR's greed. The track was just as rough last year, but no paving has been done. I'd be willing to bet that if it was one of Bruton Smith's tracks, NASCAR would be screaming at him to do something about it. This also reminds me of the track in Texas, south of College Station, that NASCAR abandoned several years ago because it was too rough. Apparently Bill France didn't own that track!
The qualifying race for the Bud Shootout put winner Mike Skinner into the Shootout. He dueled with Robert Pressley, who led until the mandatory pit stop. They bumped fenders for a while after coming back on the track after the pit stop, but Skinner managed to get the lead and keep it. Jimmy Spencer tried to catch them on pit road, and was black flagged for speeding, so he dropped out of the race. There was one caution for Debris on the track. Caution laps don't count for the Shootout or the qualifier.
Bud Shootout
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