Changes to qualifying still leaves have-nots wanting

NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton announced a minor change to the "Go Or Go Home" system Monday. Jason Smith/Getty Images

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NASCAR made a major announcement this weeky with the goal of helping its "poor."

What it didn't do was narrow the gap between the have-nots and haves.

In case you missed it, those teams currently outside the top 35 in owner points will now qualify together at the end of every session to decide which eight drivers make the 43-car field. Previously, those cars were spread out among the qualifying draw. That had long been a sore spot since the rule was created in 2005, as cars often made or missed races based on the order in which they qualified. If you were scheduled to go out first during a night qualifying session, for example, your chances of making the field were far less favorable than a car scheduled to go out 54th. One hour's difference can cause track conditions to be significantly cooler, providing a competitive advantage to a driver going out later in the evening.

Now, the roughly dozen or so full-time teams without a qualifying exemption each week will be grouped together in an arrangement that will minimize those differences. Qualifying back-to-back, there will be roughly 15 minutes in between the first and last car, meaning factors like weather and track conditions will no longer play the major role they once did.

Don't get me wrong: the news that NASCAR's "Go Or Go Home" cars would qualify together was met with relief by many in the sport. But while the have-nots are smiling, they're not dancing in the streets quite yet, as they continue to toil under another difficult rule that leaves them at a distinct disadvantage.

The cars which head into each weekend without a top-35 qualifying exemption are treated as if they grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. The last to park their trailers on a given race weekend -- sometimes, they initially park in a completely separate area than everyone else -- these teams find themselves in a near-impossible scenario from the minute practice starts. While the exempted teams that know they'll qualify focus on race setup early and often, the non-top 35 teams must waste all of Friday practice on qualifying -- meaning that even if they do make the race, their time to prepare for Sunday is limited. If they're lucky, they'll have two Saturday practices to roll the dice and hope they hit on the right setup. But if those practices are shortened and/or rained out, it's tough luck.

The pressure from Friday often carries over to the race on Sunday, where those have-nots feel forced into a mode of playing it safe. For them, it isn't about winning but finishing as high as they can without crashing, as any sort of DNF kills their chances of getting an exemption for qualifying the next week. Even for the "haves" whose cars are on the cusp of that 35th-place exemption bubble, it's a tough situation. Do you go for broke with a car that could finish in the top 5, knowing a wreck could leave you a nervous wreck, and forced to qualify on speed the next week? Or do you play it safe, knowing staying in line could keep you just above the cut?

All too often -- as is the case in NASCAR these days -- those drivers feel forced to look at the bigger picture, ease up and opt for the latter. It's true that they're the ones who put themselves in that position by continued poor performance -- you don't drop out of the top 35 unless you're not running well -- but when you fall down a hill, it shouldn't be twice as hard to climb back up.

At best, this rule will lead to better track conditions at the end of some qualifying sessions that cause some non-exempt cars to start a little higher on race day. But even that scenario has the potential to cause problems for the sport; if a car qualifies 20th-fastest overall but misses the show because it is slower than eight others without an exemption, how will that play to the fans? That situation already happened once last year: at Talladega, the ninth-fastest car went home because it wasn't in the top 35, causing much head-scratching among casual fans still struggling to understand the rule.

Those in the know understood the confusion -- the non-exempt cars had special qualifying setups that allowed them to go faster on a restrictor plate track -- but how do you try and explain that to a newer onlooker? It's very difficult, to say the least.

Still, it seems that Monday's announcement means NASCAR will continue to stick by the top 35 for the foreseeable future. With these changes, they've made the have-not side of the tracks a fairer place to be -- but with the bigger rule in place, it'll never be as nice as the haves across the street.