Full Throttle

The loudest murmur (sometimes a roar) heard around NASCAR Nation are changes to occur in the current Sprint Cup qualifying rules.

NASCAR made a small change by allowing the go home crowd to qual as a group after the top 35 cars timed in. The idea being the go homers would be on equal footing between themselves in relation to weather and track changes.

I’ve got another plan, and never one shy about stealing um… borrowing from others, I’m taking my cue from Australia’s V8 Supercar Series. Their tin-top series is running in support of (some say the reverse) of this weekends opening F1 World Championship round at Albert Park.

They are running what’s being called ‘Red (GM) versus Blue’ (Ford) Sprint Gas V8 Supercars Manufacturers Challenge.

Billed as a fight between Ford and Holden the quickest driver from each team deciding the starting positions for the rest of their runners all weekend. As it happens things were nicely settled yesterday (Today U.S. time) with Holden and Ford alternating through the top seven runners ahead of the top-10 shootout and race one held on Saturday.

So, with all that in mind, what if…

Something similar were tried at a few special events in NASCAR. All-Star weekend at Charlotte might work and I think we all can agree Atlanta and Fontana needs something to give the fans a swift kick in the rumps to fill the seats.

The obvious difference are the presence of four manufacturers in Sprint Cup vice only 2 competing in the V8’s. Those four could be split by fastest time, for example:

Biffle’s Ford turns in a lap around Mythical Speedway in a time of 32.761 secs. Close behind is the Dodge of Labonte at 32.845 secs. Third quickest is the Toyota of “Jet Fuel” Mikey at 33.003 and bringing up the rear is the U.S. Army Chevy of Aric Almirola with a time of 33.098. (hey, don’t complain BowTie fans, Chevy out numbers the competition by 2-3 to 1 at each event. And besides this is nothing more than a Full Throttle Magical Mystery Tour. It’s my fantastical fantasy leave me alone!)

As a result of the times listed the field would be lined up with Fords filling each front row position (fastest to slowest), then all the Dodges, the Toyotas and finally all the Chevys. (Yeah, it sucks to be you doesn’t it Chevy fans?)

If you hadn’t figured it out by now the object of this nonsense is to forget the driver vs driver dynamic, team vs team or which sponsor has the most colors splashed across a hood, but to pit manufacturer - GM, Ford, Dodge and Toyota - against each other. With all the Poo flung about NASCAR Nation over Toyota’s entry into Cup it might be a winner.

Of course the kicker to this is this race in itself is a special qualifier. How drivers finish at Mythical Speedway is how they line-up for the race to be run later in the day.

Oh, silly me. I forgot to tell ya this was only a no pit stop 20 lap dash for the flag! To be followed by the “insert current sponsor name here ___” 500 at Fontana or the “whatever to hell you wanna call it” 500 at Atlanta.

And NASCAR could throw all caution to the wind (no pun intended, I think) and introduce the event at the “I’ve Fired all My Lawyers on Retainer 500″ at Kentucky Motor Speedway.

So what do you think?]

Anyone ready to partake in Full Throttle’s Magical Mystery Tour - “Presented by the Half-Vast Staff™ of Full Throttle and Boudreaux’s Butt Paste®” - or will you just sit there and let the train of innovation pull out of the station without you?