Trucks face more confusion in group qualifying

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The latest version of group qualifying remained confusing to teams and drivers Friday, but wasn't as messy as Sunday's pole qualifying for the Daytona 500.

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series on Friday used a modified version of the format used Sunday during NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying. The retooled format didn't result in the magnitude of crashes and damage sustained Sunday, but two of the top contenders in the truck series encountered problems blamed on confusion about the new format.

Matt Crafton and Timothy Peters were relegated to poor starting positions after finding trouble in the first round of qualifying Friday. Crafton was left alone in the first group after confusion about the start of the session, and Peters crashed after being unclear whether he could pass on pit road as his session began.

"I just want to be a little more clear," Peters said. "It's a little screwed up."

Peters thought he couldn't pass on pit road and later crashed when Norm Benning moved up the track as Peters was trying to pass on the outside. Crafton fell behind when trucks left pit road at the start of his session, leaving him out of the draft and unable to make it to the second round.

"They were a little disorganized on the NASCAR side," said Carl Joiner Jr., Crafton's crew chief. "Matt had to hustle. We didn't get it down there in time. We called for our teams to check up (to allow Crafton to catch them and run in a draft). I would think that in three laps they would've waited for us."

Crafton, the reigning truck series champion, started 31st in the 37-car field when the NextEra Energy Resources 250 started later Friday. Peters, who has eight truck wins in 10 years in the series, started 32nd in a backup truck.

in response to the troublesome group pole qualifying Sunday — the first group qualifying session in the 56-year history of Daytona International Speedway — NASCAR officials adjusted the format for Friday's truck qualifying.

The field was divided into four groups of nine or 10 cars each for the first round of qualifying, and each round was cut from five minutes to 2½ minutes.

Trucks also were staged in a single-file line on pit road before the clock started. Drivers were forced to leave pit road immediately after they pulled out of line — an attempt to prevent drivers from holding up at pit exit to form packs.

The changes were meant to lessen the possibility of large pileups like the one that took out Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Reed Sorensen, J.J. Yeley and Bobby Labonte on Sunday. Afterward, Bowyer ripped NASCAR, calling the format "idiotic" and "a cute show."

The truck format, while confusing to some in the pits, resulted in just the crash involving Peters and Benning. Ty Dillon won the pole position with a fast lap of 188.774 mph in the No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet.

"It's a lot of what we suspected yesterday," driver Justin Boston said. This qualifying procedure has been definitely interesting."