NASCAR Behind the Wall Hot Laps: Week 3

Qualifying and "Where is My Car?"

By Richard Tix

Hot Laps will be a weekly article on news in the world of NASCAR. I will write these articles any weeks where I have a thought or opinion on NASCAR news that is worth sharing. So, this could be an every week thing, or just every few weeks. Its an opinion piece, so it is open to discussion and debate and would love to here your thoughts.

Just two races into the 2015 season and we have another Hot Laps article. This week NASCAR was at Atlanta and a few remaining issues have been hanging around I would like to touch on. So, without further introduction, lets get into them.


Travis Kvapil, "Where's my car" addition


What a strange week leading up to the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Social Media went from watching llama's run loose, to "What color is the dress," right into where the heck is Team XTREME Racings #44 car?

This weekend the #44 team was to be taken down to Atlanta Motor Speedway and to be driven by Travis Kvapil, only one problem, the car never made it there.

With early weather reports for many teams drive from there shops to Atlanta coming in with a lot of inclement weather, teams decided to packed up early to get down there and beat it. One of the teams included Team XTREME Racing. They packed up but left the car at the shop as they were still finishing some things up.

So, the plan was to finish it up and put it in a car trailer to get it down to ATL. Well, on the morning of Friday 2/27/15 they found out that there truck and trailer was missing from the hotel parking lot it was parked in. Yes, someone stole a NASCAR Sprint Cup car! I know its old news by now, but how shocked were the guys who stole it? The thieves probably though they were stealing a bunch of construction tools or even some kind of maintenance tools, but much to there shock they had a Sprint Cup car.

Early Saturday morning the #44 car was found on the road side by itself. The trailer, truck, and everything else in it was still missing, but the car was found near Snellville, GA near a wooded area off the road.

The team soon announced that they would have to withdraw from the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. It was sad news from a team that really needs to make it to the track and not waste any funds week to week.

It was a strange story to start the weekend in the NASCAR world. In the same weekend a parked SUV ran into Denny Hamlin's Motorhome when it rolled back down a hill in neutral. So, this past week did not lack strange stories and conspiracies. The #44 team did announce that hey would make it to Las Vegas this week and attempt to make the race.


NASCAR Qualifying Woes


After the mess of qualifying at Daytona for the 500, NASCAR again ran into "issues" week two at Atlanta. If you remember last weeks Hot Laps, I think that NASCAR should go back to the old way for the Daytona 500 qualifying, but everyone has there opinion.

But, this is Hot Laps and as stated above it will be the one place on NASCAR Behind the Wall where I will let me full opinion come out on NASCAR issues. This week at Atlanta many fans were upset with the way things turned out.

That's because on Friday during qualifying 13 drivers did not get out onto the track during the first round, including Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Matt Kenseth. That is where the biggest issue came up and why social media blew up, top drivers not qualifying.

NASCAR originally moved qualifying back 15 minutes when they saw the number of cars still in line to get inspected (which was the reason guys didn't qualify; inspection). This week was the first week that NASCAR would be running its new 2015 car package and the first time teams would be going through inspection with this package for qualifying.

At the start of qualifying every team had gone through the line once and many who were back in line had failed the first time (if not more than once). This left many teams and drivers not on the track to qualify.

So, fans started attacking NASCAR, because who is an easier and more convenient target than NASCAR?

Fans looked right past that everyone had gone through once and had a shot at coming out clean. Now, reports were that some officials were not as organized as they could have been, but again everyone had a chance to get through on time for qualifying.

That may have been a small part of the problem but the bigger part were the teams, but fans never want to point the finger at there own teams they cheer for, right? Each team had a car at testing on Thursday where they got to test the new package, tires, and the inspection process. At this time they could smooth those issues out and work with officials to help them with the process.

When Friday rolled around teams should have known what to expect. However, like teams will always try to do, they pushed the limits of the new car and its limitations. Should teams stop doing that? No, they will always be looking for the slightest little advantage, but they should also realize it runs the risk of failing inspection.

Inspection is a cut and dry stage were lasers will say yes or no, green or red. Now, it was a ton of cars that had to go through more than once, but again this is on the teams as much, if not more, than on NASCAR. The teams are the ones working in the gray area of trying to get as much out of the car as possible.

This was just a storm created by the first race with a new 2015 package and teams were trying to see what they could get away with. Maybe inspection officials were a bit slow (because it was also there first time doing inspection for an actual qualifying event), but this in my opinion was more on the teams pushing limits and not giving themselves enough time to get through more than once than anyone else. But again, no fan wants to blame there favorite driver or team and no driver will call out there team and throw them under the bus.

So, next time don't just go the easy road and call out NASCAR when this has more to do with what teams are trying to get away with and being ill prepared than NASCAR.

Note: One last thing on this issue. To all the fans blaming this on group qualifying, wake up. First, qualifying isn't changing anytime soon. You can try and start a petition or stop watching, but its not changing. Group qualifying has, in my mind, been a great improvement and brings back strategy and excitement. Second, the format (group qualifying) had nothing to do with your favorite driver not getting through inspection.

We used this same style for a full season on every track but some of the superspeedway's and we had no issues. Just because we had issues at Daytona, does not mean you can just roll them over into Atlanta. The format does not correlate into the inspection process and really brings down any argument on an opinion you have.


NASCAR Safety Part Two in 2015


"After the Denny Hamlin wreck with Joey Logano I thought we understood there was no longer any more excuses for things like this to happen that could have been prevented by proactive thinking, yet it did.

So NASCAR, its your last warning. No more excuses."

Yes, that is a quote from NASCAR Behind the Wall Hot Laps: Week 2. Yes, somehow at Atlanta it happened again.

If you missed the race and still do not know what happened, here is an update. In the second half of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 a wreck broke out that ended up catching Jeff Gordon. Gordon spun down to the inside of the track and hit the wall almost head on. Again, like last weeks wreck in the XFINITY series with Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon found a spot on the track that was just concrete.

This time, Gordon hit ruffly 100 feet from where the track did have SAFER barriers, but this spot did not. At a time when NASCAR is getting hit left and right with safety questions, we still have wrecks that involve bare concrete walls.

I called out last week that its 2015 and NASCAR no longer has the excuse when it comes to bare walls. Its true, NASCAR will never, ever be 100% safe because racing as a sport just can not be. Cars go around a track at 190+ MPH and anything can happen. But, we have seen how much SAFER barriers can help, just like the HANS device did after the passing of Dale Earnhardt.

Unlike the HANS which now has to be warn by every driver, we still lack that accountability by tracks and NASCAR to have SAFER barriers on ever spot on a track where cars can hit a bare concrete wall. Why? I have no idea and I think NASCAR needs to take some accountability.

Tracks should have to put up SAFER on every inch, not just the ones with a high probability to get hit, and NASCAR should be helping to fund these tracks. Its is the product NASCAR puts out there and they should be taking care of there drivers safety. Atlanta brought in some extra tires and mesh barriers to help in the time being because it was too quick to get up SAFER barriers. I give them a pass on the SAFER, but they should have had more of the track covered by some kind of protection.

If we have learned one thing by now, it is that these cars will find that one open area without protection and NASCAR along with tracks need to continue to be proactive about making the sport a safer product, and not just wait for something to happen and react to it.


NASCAR's Little Guy's

With how crazy the Daytona 500 turned out to be when it came to some big names having troubles, many small teams and lesser known drivers ended up heading to Atlanta with some good standings. But, the story line doesn't end there. That kind of thing tends to happen every year because its only one race and plate tracks can bring all kinds of crazy results.

After Atlanta we still have some great small team small driver headlines that I think are too good to pass up. Its still very early, but when you look at the standings its refreshing to see guys like Martin Truex Jr 5th (Furniture Row), Casey Mears 6th (Germain Racing), AJ Allmendinger 8th (JTG-Daugherty), and David Gilliland 11th (Front Row Motorsports). Also, both RPM drivers are also in the top 12 at the moment.

The new package might be playing a part in some of these drivers being in the top 12 at the moment, but will they be able to stay there? Even if it is just a case of pure luck and a small sample size and not because of the new car package or smaller teams gaining anything it it still nice to see for the time being.

You know what they say, the cream will rise to the top, but lets take a moment to put these guys in the spotlight. These small teams help NASCAR round out a field and its great to see some of them become more competitive. They put it out there week after week even though they do not get the results or profit that big teams do. So, give them the time of the day and maybe sponsors will start to see that they can make a splash with a big of spotlight and funding.