Group qualifying in its current format is not appropriate for the Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Every professional sport has an embarrassing moment.

Major League Baseball has the 2002 All-Star Game. The NFL dealt with the game-changing affects of replacement referees in Seattle in 2012. The NBA inauspiciously debuted a new basketball in 2006.

Sometimes embarrassing moments can be forgiven. Others live in infamy. While it's unclear if Sunday's qualifying session for the front row of the Daytona 500 will be the former, latter or (more likely) somewhere in between, there's a common theme in the three circumstances mentioned above; all of the leagues learned from their mistakes and made a corresponding change.

NASCAR needs to make a change after what transpired during the first group qualifying session for the Daytona 500.

What that change should be is, of course, open to suggestion. But the cacophony of voices from drivers participating in the session made it clear that what happened Sunday and got Jeff Gordon the pole in his final Daytona 500 should be a one-time thing.

Before the group qualifying format was implemented, Daytona's qualifying format consisted of each car making a two-lap single car run on the Sunday before the 500. The top two cars were then guaranteed the front row and the rest of the field was set via Thursday's Budweiser Duels qualifying races.

The unique setup has always set the biggest race of the season apart from every other NASCAR race – no other Cup Series race holds qualifying races. And it's served the buildup to the season well. After a cold offseason, the week-long buildup is a tasty appetizer for fans starved for speed.

That appetite is what makes the group qualifying format appealing, at least on the surface. It was introduced significantly in part to spice up qualifying telecasts that had been considered monotonous. And while it's an experiment that seems to be working at non-restrictor plate tracks, at Talladega and Daytona it's not.

It's needlessly dangerous. Not only is there a risk of multi-car crash on the track, but each plate qualifying session has at least one jumble of cars on pit road awkwardly waiting to go on the track with drafting partners, creating a scenario where drivers have time for one lap at most.

NASCAR has continually tweaked the group process at restrictor plate tracks and according to Vice President Steve O'Donnell, more tweaks are possible.

"I believe we've got a really good track record of making adjustments where we need to and we'll evaluate what took place today, we'll continue to get feedback from the industry, from the drivers, as we did to get where we were today," O'Donnell said.

While the format may be entertaining to some, it's hard to argue it's anything other than a maddening lottery.

Just ask Clint Bowyer, who let his frustrations loose after he was a loser in a first-round crash. Or Ryan Newman.

"The frustrating part is dealing with this whole system which makes no sense whatsoever," Newman said. "It's hard to stand behind NASCAR when everybody I talk to up and down pit road doesn't understand why we're doing this."

O'Donnell said no drivers criticizing the qualifying format would be fined.

"We all share the same vision with the drivers," O'Donnell said. "They want to put on the most exciting race possible and so we all knew that single-car qualifying was a challenge for us. There are a lot of different ideas out there. We do believe this is more exciting feedback, but when you hear from a Clint Bowyer, a Tony Stewart, that's passion. This is the biggest race of the year. They want to make the race and we understand that. I think as we look at that, if there are ways we can make adjustments, we will. Not everyone's going to be happy, that's always part of this.

If they happen, those adjustments could be a return to the old way of qualifying or a new and improved group format for 2016.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. likes the former option.

Yes, tradition can be used as an excuse for those unwilling to change, but it's hard to see much of a tangible benefit to the current group qualifying format at restrictor plate tracks. Many may consider single-car qualifying at restrictor plate tracks to be boring, but it's a much better test of speed and prowess than what happened on Sunday.

"We're a lot of smart people here," Busch said. "There's drivers, owners, NASCAR. We got to find a better system. So much hard work goes into these cars, then you have this roulette wheel for qualifying.  It doesn't seem the proper system."

He continued and suggested a new twist on the old format.

"We should just take the cars as we build them in the off‑season, unload, pass tech, then go qualify one car at a time, four‑lap average. That would really give a sense of pride to putting effort towards building a car to qualify for the Daytona 500 instead of shaking up bingo balls."

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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