NASCAR qualifying has drivers confused and angry

NASCAR’s new qualifying format put Brian Vickers on the pole at Talladega Superspeedway but left many drivers angry and confused, and three full-time teams failed to make Sunday’s race.

Kevin Harvick called the format “the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” and Kyle Busch said heat races should be used to set the field at superspeedways.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. called for a return to single-car qualifying at Daytona and Talladega instead of the group formats, and Jeff Gordon tweeted, “Wow never been so frustrated & confused trying to qualify for a race. Not the way we intended to start the weekend.”

Drivers admitted when they arrived at Talladega that they didn’t understand the qualifying format, and it showed as there were no clear strategies throughout the field.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Justin Allgaier, two full-time Sprint Cup Series drivers, failed to make the field.

Not making the field was met with outrage on Twitter from some of Stenhouse’s fellow drivers, who felt it was an injustice to a regular competitor.

NASCAR cut the field in half for the first round of qualifying, when 23 cars had five minutes to make their qualifying lap. Nobody wanted to be the first driver on the track, and many sat on pit road waiting for traffic to pull out.

They all wanted to turn their laps while racing in a pack to get the most speed on one of the two tracks in NASCAR that requires the use of horsepower-sapping restrictor plates.

The first drivers were beaten by the clock as they tried to time it to make their fast lap at the end of the five minutes, but their times were not counted because many of them failed to cross the finish line in the allowable time.

The fastest 24 in the field then had five minutes to qualify in the second round, with the top 12 advancing to the final segment.

The format allowed part-time drivers Ryan Blaney, Mike Wallace, Michael McDowell and Trevor Bayne to make the field. Michael Waltrip, making only his fourth start of the season, made the race and will compete before he returns to Los Angeles for Monday night’s edition of “Dancing With the Stars.”

Vickers earned the top starting spot, followed by defending NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, who probably needs to win Sunday to advance to the third round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.