Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Does anyone know how it exactly works? I understand the top 16 in points from Wed / Thur are locked into the A main on Saturday and the top 4 from Fridays main transfer to spots 17-20 however after that im a little lost. Do they go on combined points or best nights points on how everyone will lineup on Saturday? Much THX.

After Thursday night qualifying the points are tallied up from both Wed & Thurs qualifiers. The top 16 in points are locked into sat nites A Main. The next 10 in points that would be filling the 1st ten spots in Sat nights B Main,get the option of racing Frid night.However,if they choose that option,they FORFIET the chance of starting in the 1st 10 spots of the B Main on Sat night & can start no better than 11th in Sat nights B main! If they finish in the top 4 in Fri nights A Main they will fill the spots 17 to 20 in Sat nights A Main.

This option is ONLY for the drivers who are 17th to 26th in points after both qualifying nights.

All the drivers outsdie that next 10 in points,its pretty much just a 2nd chance to try & qualify again!

Also that option given to the "next 10 in points" must decide after the points are tallied up after thurday night, on the spot!

I have heard that the option is for everyone, if someone decides to forego their points and run Friday (17th through 26th points position), the next guy in line gets to choose the Top 10 Start in the B or to run Friday.

I personally don't see anyone in position 17-26 foregoing their points.

In my OPINION, this is a bad move overall for the competitors (but the FANS have packed up and gone home on Friday nights in years past because their weren't big enough NAMES running on Friday, so they added the scrambles (and FANS still complained that they thought they were dumb), so they added the World Challenge and last year the Race of Champions (so called FANS still complained), so now the format change to this year.

IMO, we should just go to 3 qualifying nights and break the field up more and FULLY INVERT the heats again. If 100 cars are there, you only are gonna have 33 cars per night though and 3 heats a B and an A.

If they do that the so called FANS will bit#h and complain that the car count isn't high enough every night.

I think this year the car count will be near 100, but I think if this format stays, your looking at a car count of 70 or less in 5 years because only the big teams have a chance to make any $$ anymore.

the beauty of the non-qualifyer night was a team having bad luck on Wed or Thursday could get a $5000 payday on Friday to salvage their week with the heavy hitters mostly locked into the A, B and C on Saturday. Now, 1/2 of those heavy hitters are going to be running Friday and those small teams that had the surprise qualifying night and are 17th-20th in points just went from a $9,500 payday guaranteed on Saturday Night to possibly not even making the feature and taking home as little as $1,100 if they choose to stand on their points and start in the B main. This is BAD for the mid-pack / local teams.

only 10 guys get a chance to be 17- 20th starters, that makes no sence to me. They should lock the top 16 in points into the A, the rest of the fields points should be frozen, Friday they should run a complete show, Qual, heats, d,c,b & a mains. the top 4 to spot 17-20. The points given on friday for 5th on back should be added to the wednsday, thursday points to set up Saturdays lineup. JMO

Northern California Sprintcars

I haven't seen a purse for Friday. Anyone know? I guess if I laid an egg on my qualifying night I would like another shot at it. I think that's legit. If you don't qualify well at the Natioanls you are in trouble. I hate that. I like the second chance but won't judge until its given a chance.

In my 38 years of attending, I don't ever remember the format being like that. Your qualifying night has NEVER (since it's been a 4 day event) had 1 nights qualifyers on the inside and the other night on the Outside, it's always been determined by point total (I don't remember exactly when they expanded to the 4 nights, but I know it's been 4 nights for 27 years straight for sure.

Here is how you "fix" the Friday night Nats show.

You run the Wed and Thurs night shows just as they've been run for years with FULLY inverted heat races.

For Friday night you take the cars that are 51-100 in points after Wed/Thurs. Have them run a complete qualifying night with the exact same format as Wed/Thurs again with FULLY inverted heat races. Same purse, points and everything.

The only difference is that the top point man from Friday night would start 11th in the C on Sat.

Now I know this isn't going to make those happy that have to see the big names in order to think they are watching a good show. For everyone that is there to see good racing it would make another excellent night of racing.

Most people always say the Wed and Thurs night races are the best racing of the year, why not copy that and do it again on Friday?

4 years ago was the last time I think.

I think car count is part of it, I think a bigger part of it was the massive crashes that occurred 2 years in a row. Domain Ramsey (i think anyway) caused a wreck on lap 1 of a heat that took out 6 or 8 cars and never forget about the crash that severely injured Jeff Shepard and essentially ended his racing career...

I think if you ask the drivers, they'd rather go back to an invert of 10 because those extra couple cars gives them a chance to make a BIG move in 1 and 2 before everyone gets strung out. With the invert of 8, ALL of the cars in front of them are good cars, those extra 2 cars sometimes put a guy a second (or two) off of quicktime on the front row and slowed the field going down the straightaway on the opening lap.

I think they should go back to the FULL INVERT, but they should aware BONUS points for passing cars. Some of the best charges the last few years have been Schatz when he didn't transfer through a heat and ran from 21st to 5th on his qualifying night and Shane Stewart last year (in every race he was in).

Shepard's crash was in the B-main, and had nothing to do with the invert... FYI

I think more guys make it from 8th into the A Main than 10th. It was getting to the point, especially when the track was too wet where it was impossible to even get to 4th, let alone win it. I think the 8 car invert is fine.

Back in the days of big car counts they had the "last chance" heats.

These were for the cars that timed 51 and up. They ran something like 8 laps and the top 2 cars got to tag the back of their qualifying night C-main.

Its been quite a few years since they've had a last chance heat.

I don't remember ever seeing anybody go from last to 1st coming out of 2 but I remember a few times of someone starting last and leading all 10 laps. Most memorable was Sammy about 10 yrs ago when he was still in the Channel Lock car.