Sprint Unlimited and Qualifying News and Results
By Richard Tix
The 2015 NASCAR season started off with a bang. It was like NASCAR picked up right where it left off in 2014. First up was the 2015 Sprint Unlimited on Saturday Night. Finally after months of waiting, fans got to see Cup cars back on the track.
Early in the Unlimited things started to unwind when Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski go together which left BK out of the race early. The fireworks continued time and time again until NASCAR was down to about 11 cars (2014 got down to a handful of cars as well). Luckily for all the drivers involved it was a non points race and no drivers were hurt by any of the incidents.
In the end Matt Kenseth pulled away on a late restart and no one could catch him even while in the draft. After a 2014 season that came with no wins, Kenseth got back to VL in the first race of 2015 (non points, but non the less).
Full Sprint Unlimited Results:
1 Matt Kenseth
2 Martin Truex Jr.
3 Carl Edwards
4 Casey Mears
5 Kyle Larson
6 Joey Logano
7 Jeff Gordon
8 Kyle Busch
9 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
10 Danica Patrick
11 Kevin Harvick
12 Ryan Newman
13 Tony Stewart
14 Greg Biffle
15 Kurt Busch
16 Ricky Stenhouse Jr
17 Austin Dillon
18 Aric Almirola
19 Denny Hamlin
20 Clint Bowyer
21 Paul Menard
22 Jimmie Johnson
23 Kasey Kahne
24 Jamie McMurray
25 Brad Keselowski
After an exciting Saturday night that got many fans even more ready for the 2015 season to officially kick of NASCAR held its Daytona 500 qualifying Sunday afternoon. Coming into the qualifying many fans and drivers had there opinions on what the format would bring. As normal I tried to stay in the middle until I saw the results at the 500.
Well early in round one of Group A Reed Sorenson and Bowyer got caught up and caused a wreck that involved a few other cars. The red flag had to come out and the social media world blew up.
I love the idea of group knock out qualifying most tracks, but after today I noticed how much I don't like it at Superspeedways. True, it does add an edge of excitement and some extra strategy, but at a track like Daytona it also adds in extra danger to each and every driver. A wreck can happen at anytime, so don't get me wrong NASCAR will always have that element of danger it has to deal with, but when underfunded teams and high rolling teams are out there with different strategies it just doesn't work. The fact that qualifying is mainly just to qualify for the Budweiser Duels add another element that seems to be over kill to a qualifying process that was out of control on Sunday.
I know people also complain about how long single car qualifying takes, but during the season opener I think it would still work. Fans are so giddy to see cars on the track that an "old school" and traditional style would still work for the 500 in my opinion. It would take out the element of another big one during a weekend that is just waiting for wrecks to happen.
Bowyer said it right, these guys work hard for months to just tear up a car in a few minutes because a guy is driving for his underfunded team to get into the 500. Its ten fold for those small teams because Reed wasn't even sure if he would have another car in Daytona (they announced they were sending one down for Thursday later after the wreck). So, its exciting and might help a few more fans get into the stands, but it also adds a lot of extra danger on pit road and on the track that isn't needed.
Now, onto the qualifying results. In the end Jeff Gordon who announced that 2015 will be his last full-time season won the pole in his last Daytona 500 of his career. It will be a great story line heading into the 2015 Daytona 500.
Qualifying Results:
1 Jeff Gordon
2 Jimmie Johnson
3 Denny Hamlin
4 Matt Kenseth
5 Kyle Busch
6 Kasey Kahne
7 Carl Edwards
8 Ty Dillon
9 Austin Dillon
10 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
11 Jamie McMurray
12 Martin Truex Jr.
13 Johnny Sauter
14 Greg Biffle
15 Trevor Bayne
16 Sam Hornish Jr.
17 Aric Almirola
18 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
19 Brad Keselowski
20 Ryan Blaney
21 Joey Logano
22 Michael Waltrip
23 J.J. Yeley
24 Bobby Labonte
25 Paul Menard
26 Alex Bowman
27 A.J. Allmendinger
28 Ryan Newman
29 Kevin Harvick
30 Kurt Busch
31 Tony Stewart
32 Danica Patrick
33 Casey Mears
34 Brian Scott
35 Michael Annett
36 Justin Allgaier
37 Kyle Larson
38 David Gilliland
39 Michael McDowell
40 Jeb Burton
41 Clint Bowyer
42 Reed Sorenson
43 Justin Marks
44 David Ragan
45 Cole Whitt
46 Josh Wise
47 Landon Cassill
48 Mike Wallace
49 Ron Hornaday Jr.
So everything is set for this Thursday Night at Daytona. The 2015 Budweiser Duels will help decide who makes the 2015 Daytona 500. No matter what way you look at it Sunday was exciting and Thursday should also be a blast and the 2015 season is finally underway!
No comments:
Post a Comment