Truck, Nationwide qualifying order rules change

NASCAR officials announced Tuesday a revision in qualifying procedures for the Nationwide and Truck Series, beginning this weekend.

Instead of separating the qualifying order between teams locked in and those which must qualify on speed, the entire field will be sorted based on practice speeds, from slowest to fastest. Starting this season, locked-in teams were set first in the qualifying order, in the inverse order of their best practice speed, followed by those needing to qualify on time. Before 2011, the qualifying order had been set by a random draw.

According to the NASCAR release, the rules change hopes to "level competition between the slowest and fastest cars and provide more of compelling qualifying session for the fans."