Duels anything but mundane for drivers

Top-35 rule has no effect on intensity, say veterans

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- By nature, the implementation of NASCAR's top-35 rule scuffs some of the luster from one of NASCAR's shiniest days -- Duels day at Daytona.

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Used to be the boys had to race hell-bent to qualify for the Great American Race. There were no gimmes. Just two drivers entered the Twin 125s with a guaranteed spot: the front row qualifiers.

Prior to the top-35 rule, a driver that struggled in -- or worse, failed to finish -- qualifying had to a post a top-15 finish in his race. Each race promoted its top-14 finishers, excluding its pole starter who locked in his position in qualifying.

At that point, 30 positions were claimed. The remaining 13 were made up of either the eight fastest -- or in older days 10 fastest -- speeds from qualifying. From there NASCAR awarded either three or five provisionals, depending on the system, to round out the field.

Thursday was much different. Thirty-nine of the 43 positions in the Daytona 500 were already guaranteed for four days, reducing the Duels to glorified races for pit stall selection.

Nineteen drivers were left to vie for the remaining four spots, and all the big guns were safer than Bubble Boy. Yawn.

It used to be so much more exciting.

Duel 1A wild finish to the first of the Gatorade Duels Duel 2Yet another green-white-checker finish in the second Duel Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Or so I thought.

According to the competitors, what ultimately transpired Thursday was far from mundane. It wasn't much different than it's ever been, in fact.

"It's just as big as ever," said Jeff Burton, who will lead the field to the green flag Sunday. "You've always come down here and known your situation. Everybody has their best cars. And for us, we're not racing for just pit position. We're racing for ... for racing.

"It's to go out there and beat everybody. I don't look at it as racing for pit [stalls]. I'm on the pole and I went out there and ran as hard as I could the entire race."

He wasn't alone. To a man, every driver asked if Thursday's competition was any less important than in years past offered a quizzical look, as if to say, "Are you serious, idiot?"

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"It's the best test session that you'll have," Dale Jarrett said. "What we do Wednesday and Friday and Saturday is not truly indicative of what's going to happen out there. So we needed that. We definitely learned some things."

"It's a great way to learn," Burton added. "I found out things about my car today that I would have never known if we didn't race. It's cool. It's part of the Daytona luster, and it shouldn't change."

Jeff Gordon, defending Daytona 500 champion and winner of the second duel, scoffed at the idea that the new format has lessened the intensity.

"There's a lot of guys still going home, so as far as I'm concerned there's still a lot on the line," Gordon said. "If we hadn't qualified on the front row, I'd been out there fighting to get the best starting position I could for the 500.

"We're all here to win the Daytona 500. I don't think it's really changed the intensity of it."

For the owners, though. Whew.

"As an owner, do you like being able to lock into more positions with the top-35? Absolutely," Rick Hendrick said. "It feels more comfortable to be here. When you know you're here and it's just a matter of the position you're in. it takes a lot of pressure off to come to Daytona."

The second Duel saw Scott Riggs' heartbreaking failure to make the Daytona 500. Under the old system, he and Kenny Wallace would have made the show.

"You ask the guys in the back that were coming to the front to get a spot in the 500 if it was important," Kyle Busch said. "They'll tell you how important it is."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.