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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