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Junior: Shootout Format Misses

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By TONY FABRIZIO

afabrizio@tampatrib.com

Published: February 5, 2009

DAYTONA BEACH - It's still the Budweiser Shootout, but the traditional non-points prelude to the Daytona 500 will have a different look and feel Saturday night.

With a record 28-car field, including several drivers who wouldn't have qualified under the old rules, the 31st Shootout will seem more like an exhibition race than an all-star event.

Defending champion Dale Earnhardt Jr., for one, doesn't like it.

"It just stinks, because I'm such a historian of the sport," Earnhardt said last month at Daytona. "I like all of the history and looking back on the guys who were in this race in the '80s and '90s, and why they were in it and how they got in and who missed it the next year.

"Things change. ... Maybe I just hate change."

For 30 years, the Shootout featured the previous season's pole winners - the fastest of the fast - and former event winners. Now, the top six drivers by owners point standings from each manufacturer qualify.

A format change became necessary after Anheuser-Busch gave up sponsorship of Sprint Cup qualifying and decided it didn't want the Budweiser Shootout to highlight the Coors Light Pole Award winners.

"It's obviously better for the manufacturers with this new format," Earnhardt said. "But it's less about why the race was started in the first place."

Two-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart was left out under the new format because he has switched from Toyota to Chevy. But NASCAR sometimes makes adjustments on the fly, and last month it announced a revision in which each manufacturer can add a "wild-card" driver.

Still, defending Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman - ironically, one of the great qualifiers of all-time - was left out.

Dodge and Toyota aren't very deep with accomplished drivers, so several drivers got into the Shootout who wouldn't have previously. David Stremme, who didn't even race in the Sprint Cup series last year, is in. So are Scott Speed, A.J. Allmendinger and rookie Joey Logano.

Matt Kenseth, a notoriously mediocre qualifier, is in the race for only the third time. Zephyrhills' David Reutimann is in, but he would have made it under the old format by virtue of his pole at Homestead.

Distance is another thing about the Shootout that's changing - again.

After beginning as a 20-lap sprint and undergoing a couple of expansions, it has been increased slightly to 75 laps, broken into segments of 25 and 50 laps.

Earnhardt suggests the final segment should be "10 laps to go, all or nothing."

Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached at (813) 259-7994.

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