Its that time of year again, and no, I don't mean that time of year when NASCAR gets its official start (although we're all pumped for that!). I'm talking about that time of year when casual NASCAR fans are confused out of their minds by the strange qualifying process that sets the field for the Daytona 500. There will be no other time of the year when qualifying is even remotely close to this, so to those of you who don't know what these two Duel races are run for, let me try to explain it to you.
Any other normal qualifying session this season will have the drivers start exactly where they qualified, but for this race, only two drivers will have locked in starting positions at this point in time. That honor goes to the pole winner, Carl Edwards, and the outside pole sitter, Greg Biffle. Now, even though the whole field qualified this past Sunday, all of the other drivers positions can change hands meaning that Dale Earnhardt Jr., who qualified 3rd, could start in the rear of the field if he performs poorly in his duel. This is because the duels sets where every driver starts (minus Edwards and Biffle) depending on where this finish in their respective duel. Stay with me though, there's one more little twist.
Any driver that qualified on Sunday in an odd numbered position (i.e. 3, 17, 29, etc.) will race in Duel #1 and all drivers who qualified in an even numbered spot goes out in Duel #2. The one thing that stays the same here is that Duel #1 will set all of the odd numbered starting spots and Duel #2 the even ones. But, because the top two spots are already set, and someone like Brad Keselowski wins Duel #1, he will only start 3rd because Edwards has the pole. Confusing enough for you yet? Here, let me add one more little fun tidbit.
As is the same with every race, the top 35 in owners points are guaranteed to make the race regardless of how bad they may qualify. This leaves eight more spots to be filled to reach a 43 car field and normally those go to the eight fastest cars who are not locked in. Once again, this qualifying style doesn't follow the same rules. Last Sunday's qualifying did have one other significance and that is that three of the unlocked cars (or as they're known as "Go or Go Home cars") with the fastest times of that group did lock themselves into the Daytona 500, those three being Trevor Bayne, Tony Raines, and David Stremme, along with Terry Labonte who holds the sacred Past Champions Provisional.
So the final piece of this crazy puzzle shakes out like this: 35 cars are already locked into the race, plus Bayne, Raines, Stremme, and Labonte which gives us 39 cars. That leaves 4 left to be determined. FINALLY! This is where the fun of the Duels come in! The rest of the "Go or Go Homers" have to beat each other to earn those last four spots, two given out in each race. So while casual fans will be watching the leaders and seeing who wins (which doesn't mean much considering you can win from anywhere you start on this track) the real racing will be going on in the mid to back of the pack. These "Go or Go Homers" will be fighting like crazy to beat each other to get those transfer spots because those are their Daytona 500 trophies essentially. Last place in this race last year received $268,500 and for teams that small, money like that will allow them to race much more this season. As whacky and confusing as these Duels are, there is a point and purpose to them especially for those small teams.
After explaining all of that, I'm out of breath (figuratively of course) so I'm not even going to attempt to pick a winner for either of these Duels, anybody can win them anyway! Here at least is a link for the lineups of each duel:
http://www.jayski.com/news/stats/2012/story/_/page/2012-Gatorade-Duels
And these are the "Go or Go Homers" you want to look for who aren't locked in:
Duel #1
Michael Waltrip
Michael McDowell
Mike Wallace
Robby Gordon
Duel #2
Joe Nemechek
Robert Richardson Jr.
J.J. Yeley
Have fun watching!
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