Dega qualifying

[bob.p...@gmail.com]

New qualifying procedure for Dega:

In nutshell, they've shortened all three rounds to just five minutes each.
One twist. There will be two "first rounds" of five minutes each with half
the field in each round--kinda like the Daytona 500 qualifying races.

Fastest 24 regardless of which first round they ran in advance to the second
round where everyone runs together, then the fastest 12 advance to the third
round.

I like this new format. Beats watching everyone just sit on pit road until the
last couple minutes because no one wants to be the "rabbit" everyone else
drafts off of.

[John McCoy]

bob.p...@gmail.com wrote in
news:dfc384cc-9696-4214...@googlegroups.com:

> New qualifying procedure for Dega:
>
> In nutshell, they've shortened all three rounds to just five minutes
> each. One twist. There will be two "first rounds" of five minutes
> each with half the field in each round--kinda like the Daytona 500
> qualifying races.

Actually, the new twist is that the participants in each
group are selected by random draw. That means a driver
can't count on having 3 teammates out there to draft with.

> I like this new format.

Better than the old one, at least. And I guess NASCAR
deserves credit for making a change in-season, even tho
the qualifying at Daytona in July and the first Talladega
was so absurd that it was obvious it wasn't working.

But all in all, I'd rather they go back to single car
qualifying. The new system really hasn't added anything.

John

[Pete Zahria]

At the plate tracks, they should just draw for starting position,
and not waste everyone's time/money..
Seriously.
For all practical purposes, it just doesn't matter.
I guess you could do the same for pit position, or for that race,
just give it out by points..



--
Dan

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool,
than to speak out and remove all doubt."

[bob.p...@gmail.com]

On Friday, September 5, 2014 9:50:02 AM UTC-4, John McCoy wrote:

>
> But all in all, I'd rather they go back to single car
> qualifying. The new system really hasn't added anything.
>

Hasn't added anything? I must respectfully disagree. There's a lot more
strategy involved than just going out when it's your turn and making one hot
lap.

You have some flexibility in when you go out. You're no longer at the random
mercy of getting a "money cloud" or full sun. If you don't like your first
effort, you can make another one--at the cost of putting more laps on your
tires.

But what I like best is the vastly improved TV coverage. With the old single
car system, it was run three cars and take a commercial break. Three more
cars, another commercial break. Three more cars, another commercial break.

I swear it felt like there was more commercial time than race coverage as
breaks were much more numerous and closer together. I absolutely hated that.

I still hate commercials, but they don't seem to be quite as much of an
interruption with the group qualifying format. And at Dega with just five
minute sessions, I'm pretty sure we'll see every bit of every session.

[John McCoy]

bob.p...@gmail.com wrote in
news:3e4111f1-0e2e-42e9...@googlegroups.com:

> On Friday, September 5, 2014 9:50:02 AM UTC-4, John McCoy wrote:
>
>>
>> But all in all, I'd rather they go back to single car
>> qualifying. The new system really hasn't added anything.
>>
>
> Hasn't added anything? I must respectfully disagree. There's a lot
> more strategy involved than just going out when it's your turn and
> making one hot lap.
>
> You have some flexibility in when you go out. You're no longer at the
> random mercy of getting a "money cloud" or full sun. If you don't
> like your first effort, you can make another one--at the cost of
> putting more laps on your tires.

Well, the first part of this is so, and I'll agree that the
added strategy call of when to go out is a good addition
for the teams. But in practice being able to do more than
one lap really doesn't help...very few drivers have been
able to improve on a second try, and those that have have
mostly just gone from 26th to 22nd, which in the big scheme
doesn't really amount to much.

> But what I like best is the vastly improved TV coverage. With the old
> single car system, it was run three cars and take a commercial break.
> Three more cars, another commercial break. Three more cars, another
> commercial break.

Can't say I'm really seeing this. The new system tends
to produce a lot of idle time (everyone waiting for the
cloud to cover the track, etc) which the annoucers fill
with random blather. I don't really see the random blather
as being any less annoying than commercials.

I say I'd like to see them go back to single car because
I'm a traditionalist, and that worked for 50 years. I'm
glad NASCAR tried this experiment, but I don't see that
it's better, it's just different (except at the plate
tracks, where it's just silly).

Now, what I'd really like would be heat races. Line up
by points (or reverse points, or random draw, or whatever)
and run 10 or 15 laps. You could have 4 heats of 12 cars,
and then maybe a B main for the top 16, and fit all that
into a 2 hour TV broadcast.

John