“Dumbest Sh*t We’ve Ever Done”—Insiders, Including Bubba Wallace Team Member, Expose NASCAR Experiment That Went Horribly Wrong

Remember the group qualifying days at ovals? Yes, the knock-out style qualifying format that used to split cars into two groups based on the odd/even finishing orders. Well, wasn’t it a relief to say goodbye to that controversial and confusing format? NASCAR insiders Brett Griffin and Freddie Kraft also think so.

In the recent episode of Door Bumper Clear, the podcast co-host and NASCAR spotter Brett Griffin was asked if he misses the group qualifying days. To this, Griffin replied, “F*ck no. I hate it! That was the dumbest sh*t we’ve ever done. I mean, you would watch some guys go out there and tear up cars.”

Reminiscing about the issues posed by the faulty format, Griffin shared an incident where he was a part of a deal with Clint Bowyer and Elliott Sadler, and Derrike Cope had wrecked them. He explained, “Like it was literally…everybody’s sitting on into the pit road until 45 seconds to go. Half the people can’t time in. Like when you are dependent upon other people to qualify that…it looked…my blood pressure just went up.”

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Agreeing with Griffin’s points against the group qualifying format, co-host Freddie Kraft also added his own list of concerns about the now-scrapped rules.

Freddie Kraft on why it is “the most dangerous thing” NASCAR has ever done

As reported by Yahoo Sports, group qualifying was implemented in 2014 as an attempt to make the NASCAR races more entertaining and exciting for viewers. However, when implemented for the first time at Daytona 500 in 2015, a huge crash occurred on the tracks. This forced the governing body to re-implement single-car qualifying at the Talladega and Daytona Speedways.

Moreover, during the first half of 2019, the drafting of cars at ovals turned out to be a big issue. After incidents of chaos and accidents on the track, NASCAR finally scrapped the group qualifying rules in 2019.

Explaining how it was the most dangerous thing ever, Bubba Wallace’s spotter Freddie Kraft said, “You remember the plate qualifying is even worse because we wouldn’t even sit on pit20 road. We would all go out on the racetrack and run in like little packs of four and five. And run half throttle, three-quarter throttle, and just try to time it out right where your pack was going to pull off another pack.

“So, then the other pack that knew you were going to try and pull off them would get to the start/finish line and scatter and stop. And now you’re trying to find a hole through the middle of it. It was…the most dangerous thing I think we’ve ever done was group qualifying at Super Speedways.”

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In retrospect, the faulty implementation of the group qualifying rules can be ascribed to NASCAR’s lack of foresight. However, it is important to acknowledge that the governing body did realize the mistake and took action to make the races safer yet entertaining for everyone in time.