Kyle Busch: 'This just isn't right' after another qualifying wreck
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Problems continued with NASCAR's group qualifying format Saturday as six cars crashed and spun just three hours before the start of the Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway.
Daniel Suarez's car spun during the first round of qualifying, triggering a multicar crash involving Carlos Contreras, Blake Koch, Harrison Rhodes, Landon Cassill and Ryan Reed.
Kyle Busch, who owns Suarez's car and was watching from pit road, clapped sarcastically after the crash.
"I can say a lot of things that would get me in trouble," Busch said. "This is not what it needs to be. … This just isn't right. We've got a bunch of torn-up racecars, which we shouldn't be doing in qualifying."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. also was involved in a separate incident on the same lap, failed to complete a timed lap before the yellow flag was waved for the six-car crash. He never returned when qualifying resumed and started 40th in the Alert Today Florida 300.
Two of the six drivers involved in the crash — Rhodes and Contreras — failed to make it into the 40-car field. Driving a repaired car, Reed made it all the way to the final qualifying round of 12 cars and started eighth in the race.
Austin Dillon steered clear of trouble and won the pole position with a lap of 190.251 mph.
The group qualifying format is making its debut at Daytona after being introduced in NASCAR Sprint Cup events last year following the Daytona 500. It was widely criticized after similar problems Sunday during pole qualifying for the Daytona 500.
The format was altered slightly before Friday's qualifying for the Camping World Truck Series race, but Timothy Peters crashed during his session.
Drivers involved in Saturday's crash struggled to offer a solution to the format, which puts cars on the track simultaneously in several groups and stages to determine the starting order for the race.
"If I had qualified on the pole, I would have loved it," Koch said. "Now that I've qualified bad, I will tell you I don't like it, but there are people who are able to make a better decision on that than I can. Hopefully, they have or they do. I just go with the flow."
Earnhardt Jr.'s car, which was struck by Rhodes' car before it was caught in the six-car crash, didn't return to the qualifying session when it resumed after a brief rain delay.
"I was just trying to get a fast lap there," Earnhardt said. "It's such a shame."
The scene in the Xfinity garage area was chaotic, with crew members scrambling during the rain delay to get the six crashed cars back into the qualifying session.
After Sunday's troublesome Sprint Cup session, NASCAR officials announced a change in rules for truck and Xfinity qualifying.
Instead of two groups, the field was divided into four groups for the first round of qualifying. Each round was cut from five minutes to two and a half minutes.
Cars also were staged in a single-file line on pit road before the clock started, and 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.
NASCAR officials have said the group format for Sprint Cup restrictor-plate races will be reevaluated before the next plate race May 3 at Talladega.
The group format is an attempt to make qualifying more interesting than the traditional single-car format. In its first use at Daytona, it's created issues, including a multicar crash that led to Clint Bowyer calling the format "idiotic" and "a cute show."
"It's NASCAR's fault for putting us out here in the middle of this crap for nothing," Bowyer said Sunday during a rant captured on live TV. "We used to come down here and worry about who is going to sit on the front row and the pole for the biggest race of the year. Now we come down here and worry about how a start-and-park like this out of desperation is going to knock us out of the Daytona 500. It's stupid. There is no sense in doing this."
Cassill and Koch were treated and released from the infield care center.
Busch wondered what would happen to the crashed cars, including Suarez's, which his crew was trying to repair as rain fell.
"You've got guys now that may have speed -- they may be fast enough to transfer through to the next round -- but they're wrecked," Busch said. They can't transfer through. … This just ain't right."
Contributing: Mike Hembree
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