[steve-d]

Every other race in the season has qual a day or two before. Why a week early?

Steve

[Rob Hood]

A huge difference between the over 200 mph speeds and the under 200 mph speeds is aerodynamics. Cars that ran over 200 without plates were significantly inferior aerodynamically but had enough horsepower to compensate. I think this year is the first year that the pace car will have more HP than the race car (how sad is that...).

I really think they could get rid of the plates and use a short-track body (Bristol or Martinsville), which combined with a 450-cfm carb (roughly half of the current 830 cfm) would provide a large enough "natural" restriction without resorting to using plates. This will also put the car back into the driver's hands. When Earnhardt lost his primary car at Michigan due to a happy hour tangle with Rusty, he had to use a Bristol car as a backup for the race. He would go backwards on the straights, but would eat everybody up in the turns because he had so much downforce.