Talladega qualifying has drivers fuming

NASCAR’s new qualifying format put Brian Vickers on the pole at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway but left many drivers angry and confused, and two full-time teams failed to make Sunday’s race.

Kevin Harvick called the format “the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” and Kyle Busch said heat races should be used to set the field at superspeedways.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. called for a return to single-car qualifying at Daytona and Talladega instead of the group formats, and Jeff Gordon tweeted, “Wow never been so frustrated & confused trying to qualify for a race.”

Drivers admitted when they arrived at Talladega that they didn’t understand the qualify- ing format, and it showed as there were no clear strategies throughout the field.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Justin Allgaier, two full-time Sprint Cup Series drivers, failed to make the field.

NASCAR cut the field in half for the first round of qualifying, when 23 cars had five minutes to make their qualifying lap. Nobody wanted to be the first driver on the track, and many sat on pit road waiting for traffic to pull out.

They all wanted to turn their laps while racing in a pack to get the most speed on one of the two tracks in NASCAR that requires the use of horsepower-sapping restrictor plates.

The first drivers were beat by the clock as they tried to time it to make their fast lap at the end of the five minutes, but failed to cross the start/finish line in the allowable time.

The fastest 24 in the field then had five minutes to qualify in the second round, with the top 12 advancing to the final segment.

Terry Labonte, 58, announced he will retire after Sunday’s race. The two-time Cup champion ran 26 full seasons at NASCAR’s top level and a partial schedule for the past decade.