How to improve Qualifying (I couldn't think of a better heading)

Two weeks ago at California Michael Waltrip threw down a qualifying lap that was 34^th fastest. It was faster than 10 teams that made the race, but Waltrip took the long early voyage back across the country. After a tumultuous Speedweeks that saw Waltrip exit with negative points, it was another tough result for the #55 team. Four seasons ago Waltrip wouldn’t have had to worry about explaining to NAPA why they missed the race. The problem now is owner’s points. With the top 35 teams assured spots every Sunday, new teams face a serious challenge to make races. The challenge is compounded this year with so many new teams attempting the full Cup schedule.

A common response from fans is “go fast or go home.” It sounds simple, but the issue is far more complex than simply sending slow teams home. Eliminating all guaranteed spots is not possible. There are too many interests involved for this to work.

Fans come to watch the stars. It is one of the unique attractions that NASCAR can offer. Very few sports can guarantee that all of the top drivers will be in the same event every weekend. Even in golf, stars like Tiger Woods don’t play many of the smaller events.

A paying fan can bank of the fact that Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and almost every other top star will be in the race they choose to attend.

Without some assurance that the stars will race, it opens a door that NASCAR certainly doesn’t want opened. Say Tony Stewart cuts a tire in qualifying at Indianapolis. Suddenly one of the most popular drivers in the sport would not be in the field in one of the biggest races of the year. Stewart fans would miss seeing their favorite driver. Fans who hate Stewart miss out on the chance for their favorite driver to beat Stewart. Race fans as a whole would miss one of the top drivers at one of his favorite tracks. It goes beyond one driver too. If a driver wins, they want beat all the top drivers. Fans want to see a collection of all the top drivers their favorite included.

This also affects the large sponsors. Whether fans like it or not sponsors do have a large say in NASCAR. It makes things murky, but that’s the way it goes when Fortune 500 companies invest seven figures in the sport.

If you are a team inside the top 35, it is a tremendous advantage. First there is little need to work on qualifying setups during practice sessions. They can focus solely on running race trim if desired. Secondly, if they have a safe, slow qualifying lap there is no risk of smacking the wall and ruining a primary car during qualifying.

Guaranteed spots in the field will not go away, but it does need tweaking. The rule’s original intent was to provide some insurance for the teams that attempted every race. Maybe it made sense in 2005 when there were fewer than 43 full time teams. Now there are close to 50 with plans to enter all 36 races. Reduce the number of teams to somewhere between 20 and 25. That way anyone with realistic visions of making the Chase, and this presumably would include most stars, and let everyone else make the race on time.

Another related issue is the Champion’s provisional. NASCAR took a step in the right direction by capping its use to 6 races per season, but they can do more. Make it so a driver can’t use the provisional in consecutive races. That would eliminate teams from hiring a past champion to secure a top 35 spot after five races. Call it the Terry Labonte Rule (it’s nothing against Hall of Fame Racing or Labonte, they played by the rules).

Suddenly instead of 36 of 43 spots guaranteed, the number is reduced to 25. Suddenly 40% of the field is open to the fastest qualifying times. The locked-in drivers would still have an advantage, but it would even the playing field for making each race. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it would be a pretty good compromise.

The Top 35 Derby

In European football (soccer for us Yanks) they call it relegation. At the end of the season the bottom three teams in the standings are sent down to the lower division, while three others are promoted. Unlike most US sports leagues, relegation battles create added excitement and interest for teams that otherwise have nothing to play for. Relegation means not only a lower level of competition, but significantly lower revenue. For teams in England, staying in the Premiere League means a piece of a billion dollar TV contract (about $60 million USD per team).

An NFL or NBA team that is out of playoff contention begins playing for next year. This often involves passively improving their draft pick status to land the next franchise player. Aside from waning fan support, there is no incentive for the bottom teams to remain competitive. For a losing franchise in the US, there is no reason to take interest.

Maybe the closest a US sport gets to relegation is NASCAR’s top 35 rule. Teams outside the top 35 in owner points have to qualify on time for seven or eight transfer spots to make each race. It’s not always a popular rule among fans, but it has definitely added excitement and interest for cars near the bottom of the standings. If not for the top 35 rule few would have paid attention to Kyle Petty and Sterling Marlin during the Chase. Instead it was an interesting side story as the season wound down. It also means a big difference in revenue for the teams. Obviously missing a race means no prize money, but also the potential of losing sponsors, the costs of traveling to races and their cut in the year end points fund.

The Nextel Cup is only two races in, but some teams are already in a huge hole for 2007. The first big landmark will come after the Bristol race. At that point the top 35 drivers in owner points are locked in. There are 12 teams attempting to enter the top 35, while 35 other teams attempt to stay anchored in the safety zone.

Based on the past three years, 400 points is the magic number for assured safety. That’s the average points total of the 32^nd place driver after 5 races. With more full time drivers competing to make races, that might be too high. 400 points breaks down to averaging 80 points per race, or finishing 26^th. For drivers like Brian Vickers and Paul Menard, who have already missed one race, the average bumps up to 100 points per race or a top 20 every week. Remember, Scott Riggs missed the Daytona 500 in 2006 and was back inside the top 35 by week 6. It’s not an impossible task.
Twelve drivers are trying to wriggle inside the top 35. The results range from sitting pretty to sitting on the edge of a cliff.

Joe Nemechek-A top ten at Daytona was huge. Nemechek currently has 259 points and sits 7^th in points. Ginn Racing has obviously improved all three teams since last year. Nemechek is an excellent qualifier and the points he’s already accumulated provide additional cushion.

Johnny Sauter-After a disastrous 2004 rookie year with Richard Childress, Sauter has returned from Busch purgatory. He was always a good driver-he won a Busch race in 2005- but couldn’t land another Cup ride until this season. Two top 20 finishes in two races quietly puts Sauter on pace to sit inside the top 35 with room to spare. Maybe the bigger concern is ensuring his teammate Jeff Green is around to join him.

Dale Jarrett-It is a different story for Jarrett without his past champion provisional. Using the provisional buys Jarrett at least six races, but he hasn’t piled up points so far. He is 28^th with 164 points, but struggled all day at California. How bad was it? His driver rating was 32.9 while running all day. Martin Truex Jr, who blew an engine after 14 laps, had a 37.1 driver rating. Jarrett should be fine in the long run, but MWR must find more speed.

Sterling Marlin-Qualifying on speed is old news to Marlin, who spent a large part of 2006 outside the top 35. The cars have been better so far this season, but an early crash at California hurt. Marlin’s 170 points puts him ahead of the 400 point pace, but he can’t afford the crashes that plagued him last season.

Brian Vickers-Team Red Bull finally made a race, and the finish was impressive. Doug Richert and Vickers form the best crew chief-driver combination of the Toyota cars. Vickers needs to average 88 points over the next three races to reach the 400 point mark. Qualifying for the Toyotas has still been troublesome, but once Vickers is in the race he is good enough to get Red Bull up and running.

David Reutimann-So far his record shows to races made on speed and three DNF’s including the Twin 150’s. He has been one of the fastest Toyotas in qualifying and certainly the most consistent of the MWR cars. Unfortunately he doesn’t have very many points to show for it. He sits 41^st with 107 points. With two more speedway races and then the rookie-humbling Bristol, it could be a challenge to make the top 35 after Bristol. Reutimann is definitely capable of making races and eventually entering the top 35.

Paul Menard-All the attention is on his teammates and their blown engines, but Menard had a steady race at California. His 103 points puts him in the ballpark for entering the top 35. He is currently 43^rd, although there are two part time drivers ahead of him that he will pass granted he continues to qualify for races. He was second fastest among Need for Speed drivers at California.

Michael Waltrip-The 100 point penalty from Daytona is enormous. After missing the CaliforniaToyota will figure things out as the season continues and all three of Waltrip’s cars will run better. It just won’t be immediately in the top 35. race, Waltrip still sits at -27 points after two races. What’s worse, his teammates were not very good on the intermediate track.

Jeremy Mayfield-The second Bill Davis team was expected to have a head start on the other Toyota teams because it was an established organization. Mayfield is a good driver and should be able to make two or three of the next few races. It is still a large hole missing the first two races. If he can’t make one of the next two races the year might turn into one big R&D session and building towards 2008. It sounds extreme, but that’s how competitive Cup has become.

AJ Allmendinger-It’s not surprising that the driver with no Cup experience would have the hardest time making races. What is surprising is that Allmendinger isn’t running the Busch series. He ran both truck races but he needs as much seat time as possible and Red Bull had to know it would be tough to do so at the Cup level. At least there are two road courses to circle on the calendar.

Mike Bliss, Ward Burton, Kenny Wallace-These teams all have limited resources and zero Cup starts in 2007. It will be a feat to make more than six races combined this year. It will be a greater feat if all three teams are still entering races by the summer.

With five to six outside drivers in good position to enter the top 35, other drivers will fall. Here are five candidates:

Scott Riggs-With a rough start, Riggs again finds himself with a potential battle for the top 35. The 25 point penalty makes the situation more serious. At least Riggs will get crew chief Rodney Childers back for Las Vegas.

Kyle Petty-The 45 team spent last season struggling to regain a place in the top 35. With better funded teams looking to swoop in, Petty can’t afford many more DNF’s.

Ken Schrader-Schrader was the innocent victim of Dave Blaney’s reckless dive-bomb at Daytona. He is strong at short tracks, but he really needs strong runs at Las Vegas and Atlanta.

Jeff Green-Green had a decent run at Daytona ruined by Jimmie Johnson’s crash. Green has always languished in the high 20’s, but that may not be enough this year.

Dave Blaney-A wreck and a blown engine put Blaney in a hole. He has an established team, but the Camry is far from a finished product. Blaney overachieved last season with an under-supported team. If he falls outside the top 35 to start the season it is a squandered opportunity.

Who has the best Engine Programs?

Engines are the biggest single expense on a car. They are also essential for finishing a race. It sounds simple, but think about it. Teams can recover from almost any problem during a race: a flat tire, a crash, a dead battery, even a bad transmission is still not the end of the race. If your engine is done, so is your day.

Horsepower is a big requirement for a good engine, but reliability is even more important. The teams that figure out the formula to maximize both parts have a huge advantage. Certain teams have reputations for stronger engine programs than others, but which ones are truly the best? Since I don’t have a dynometer, or access to the NASCAR garage, I thought the best way to gauge the engine programs was engine failures.

I took the number of DNF’s due to engine failures as noted by Racing Reference. This means that if an engine was headed south, but didn’t expire before the end of the race it wasn’t counted, because it’s impossible to judge that. The quick and dirty answer is counting the number of failures divided by the number of total races. This includes full and part-time teams plus teams that purchase engines from other teams (Ginn, Haas, Petty, etc).

Penske/Jasper engines did not have a failure in 2007, although they only ran 72 total races. Although Penske only won one race, they did score eight poles, which does testify to the horsepower available. Penske’s lack of wins is related to other issues with the cars, but at least the engines appear in good shape. Joe Gibbs Racing supplied engines for four full-time teams and had two failures all year. Two failures in 144 races works out to a 1.4% failure rate. That’s pretty impressive over that many races. Gibbs is one of the premier organizations, and the engine program proves that.

Five other teams (Hendrick, Ganassi/Elliott, Bill Davis, Childress and Yates/Roush) all had a failure rate between 2.6 and 3.0%. For Hendrick and Yates/Roush that is pretty impressive considering the number of teams they each support. Each organization supplied engines for over 300 races in 2006 and both had less than 10 failures. The two other companies with their own engine programs are Evernham (5.6%) and DEI (6.1%). Evernham won six races and eight poles, all on speedways, in 2006. The power is evident, but they have less reliability. At first glance, these two organizations are lacking compared to others.

Digging deeper reveals some interesting numbers. Several organizations lease out engines to smaller teams. Theoretically any team that purchases engines will get the same specs and product as the in-house teams. It’s hard to know for sure what differences there are, but the failure rates almost always increase for teams buying their engines at retail.

The largest engine supplier is Hendrick Motorsports, who support three other full-time teams at Ginn Racing and Haas CNC. They also supplied engines for Michael Waltrip Racing’s five test races. In total, teams ran 115 races with Hendrick retail engines. There were only three failures or a 2.6% rate. That falls directly in line with their overall rate and the in-house failure rate (5 failures in 190 races). Evernham and DEI take much better car of their in-house teams. Evernham’s in-house failure rate was 4.6%, but it jumps to 6.9% for third-party teams. Iin 36 fewer races Petty Enterprises suffered the same number of failures as Evernham’s three full-time teams. DEI’s gap is even larger. They had three failures from their in-house teams, including one from part-time Paul Menard, good for a 3.8% failure rate. Robby Gordon leased DEI power and had three failures himself. That’s an unacceptable 8.3%. Again, it’s difficult to know the exact reasons for failures. It’s still no surprise that Gordon will switch to Ford in 2007, and the engine factor certainly weighed in his decision.

There are so many parts and variables in play for any engine’s performance. It’s a constant struggle to balance maximum horsepower with reliability. Evernham produces great horsepower at the cost of some reliability. Bill Davis and Ganassi showed great reliability, but not necessarily the same strength of other teams. Next year might be totally different. Bill Davis Racing switches to Toyota. It’s very possible they experience greater horsepower with flakier results. All three Toyota outfits are likely to have inconsistent engine programs in year one. Other teams fluctuate from year to year. Look at Childress Racing. Their entire program improved in 2006 while other teams declined. It’s no different for engine departments.

The top 35 will affect everything in 2007. This is especially true for team's engine programs. A blown engine in the first five races will put a driver in a big points hole. All the time spent in the offseason at the wind tunnel, pit crew practice or preseason testing can go down the drain if an engine fails. For a team hovering around the 35th place, this could prove fatal.