Today at 3:30 p.m. ET on Fox the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Atlanta will get underway with Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano sitting atop the pole. Race fans can live stream the action for free by clicking this link.
Logano proved last season that he has mastered the new qualifying format, but many other Cup drivers still have big problems with it. Jeff Gordon, who last week won the pole for the Daytona 500 and had no issues was more vocal this week.
"We were excited about qualifying today," Gordon said. "I felt like we had a shot at being up front. This is just absolutely ridiculous."
Gordon will start 35th out of 43 drivers, and wasn't able to post a time because of technical issues that delayed 13 teams from getting on the track in the initial 15-minute window. Only 34 teams posted times with 36 slots available on speed, so any driver able to post a time automatically qualified.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Director Richard Buck said some of the drivers should accept responsibility for the delays though.
"Their job is to push it to that very limit," Buck said. "Our job is to treat everybody fairly and give everybody an opportunity to come through that inspection room. But their responsibility is to come through there right but to the limit. I think that's what you saw today, was everybody pushing the limits."
Gordon wasn't having it, however. One of NASCAR's greatest posterboys fired back about these holdups that cost him good position.
"They [at NASCAR] should have recognized they had an issue," Gordon said. "When you have this many teams that are having issues going through [inspection], there's something wrong. There's something wrong with their system or there's something wrong with the amount of time they allot to get through.
"There is no way this many good cars, talented people, that they can't figure out how to get these cars through inspection. Yeah, we're pushing limits, but there's something wrong here. I'm embarrassed for our series right now that this just happened."
STARTING GRID
POS
DRIVER
MANUFACTURER
CAR
SPEED
1
Joey Logano
Ford
194.683 mph
2
Kevin Harvick
Chevrolet
193.792 mph
3
Jamie McMurray
Chevrolet
193.623 mph
4
Denny Hamlin
Toyota
193.400 mph
5
Carl Edwards
Toyota
193.137 mph
6
Kyle Larson
Chevrolet
192.949 mph
7
Ryan Newman
Chevrolet
192.942 mph
8
Sam Hornish Jr.
Ford
192.313 mph
9
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Chevrolet
192.206 mph
10
Kasey Kahne
Chevrolet
192.140 mph
11
AJ Allmendinger
Chevrolet
191.483 mph
12
Brad Keselowski
Ford
191.403 mph
13
Paul Menard
Chevrolet
192.326 mph
14
Martin Truex Jr.
Chevrolet
192.313 mph
15
Austin Dillon
Chevrolet
192.146 mph
16
Justin Allgaier
Chevrolet
192.033 mph
17
David Ragan
Toyota
191.496 mph
18
Danica Patrick
Chevrolet
191.291 mph
19
Greg Biffle
Ford
190.935 mph
20
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Ford
190.692 mph
21
Casey Mears
Chevrolet
190.653 mph
22
Brett Moffitt
Toyota
190.646 mph
23
Aric Almirola
Ford
190.424 mph
24
Michael McDowell
Ford
189.558 mph
25
Clint Bowyer
Toyota
189.513 mph
26
David Gilliland
Ford
189.493 mph
27
Mike Bliss
Ford
189.351 mph
28
Joe Nemechek
Ford
189.183 mph
29
Trevor Bayne
Ford
6
188.906 mph
30
J.J. Yeley
Toyota
188.187 mph
31
Brendan Gaughan
Chevrolet
62
188.117 mph
32
Brian Scott
Chevrolet
187.837 mph
33
Josh Wise
Ford
183.881 mph
34
Ron Hornaday Jr.
Chevrolet
181.147 mph
35
Jeff Gordon
Chevrolet
N/A
36
Matt Kenseth
Toyota
N/A
37
Jimmie Johnson
Chevrolet
N/A
38
Regan Smith
Chevrolet
N/A
39
Tony Stewart
Chevrolet
N/A
40
Jeb Burton
Toyota
N/A
41
Cole Whitt
Ford
N/A
42
Alex Bowman
Chevrolet
N/A
43
Landon Cassill
Chevrolet
N/A
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