Friday rainout procedures leave scheduling questions

Weather has been an issue this season, there is no way around it. The Daytona 500 weekend was picture perfect, but since then it has been one headache after another when it comes to Mother Nature.

At California, rain took out all three qualifying sessions and forced the Cup race to start on Sunday and finish on Monday. Two weeks later in Atlanta, rain and snow messed with track activities on Friday and Saturday, but mainly altered the Truck and Nationwide events, as the Cup cars were able to make their two laps and set the field based on speed -- not last year's owner points.

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Last weekend at Bristol, more of the same with the weather as it played a factor in the final opportunity for Cup teams to cement themselves in the top 35. NASCAR, however, decided it was more important to run three Cup practices than set the grid based on speed, so for the second time in five races, Jimmie Johnson was handed the pole and guys like Patrick Carpentier were pushed to the parking lot.

The weather puts NASCAR in a tough situation. There are a lot of events squeezed into three days at a track -- some events the public doesn't even know about. So I understand the time constraints officials are under.

But Bristol is different and NASCAR dropped the ball.

Bristol is a .533-mile short track that takes about 16 seconds to get a circuit in. It's not the 2-mile track California is, where qualifying will take around two-and-a-half hours -- at Bristol, you can get 46 cars to qualify in about an hour, probably less.

So when NASCAR canceled not only Cup qualifying, but Nationwide time trials on Friday after rain started to fall in Thunder Valley, I was shocked. When I learned they would run a 90-minute Nationwide practice, followed by TWO hour-long Cup practices on Saturday, my shock turned to anger.

Carpentier, Jeff Green and John Andretti were left out of the Cup race while Danny O'Quinn and Sam Hornish Jr. missed the Nationwide race for no valid reason.

Did the Cup guys really need two more hours of practice after having 90 minutes on the track on Friday? I understand practice is important, but does practice trump making sure the sport gives all the competitors a chance to race their way in? I hope not.

Bristol has lights -- can they not run qualifying on Saturday night? In hindsight, the weather would have been an issue since the Nationwide race was cut short, but why not move one of the practices to after the Nationwide race and have the Cup cars qualify in the morning?

And then I have a couple issues that apply to all tracks on the schedule.

Truck and Nationwide drivers are forced to qualify and race on the same day multiple times throughout the season, but that is a huge no-no for the Cup guys. What makes them so special? The race at Bristol didn't go green until 2:16 p.m. ET, with on-track activities beginning around noon -- seems like plenty of time between 9 a.m. and noon to get that qualifying in.

And why can nothing take place after the Nationwide race on Saturday afternoon? If a track has lights, can NASCAR not move an event to after the race to make sure everything on the schedule gets in?

These questions do not require difficult solutions to ensure all competitors get a chance at making the race. I'm not asking the governing body to move the start time of a race, because I know that is impossible. But there are simple solutions that appear to be overlooked.

This is a different time in NASCAR, where there are up to 49 full-time teams looking for one of the coveted 43 spots in a Cup Series race. All I'm asking is that NASCAR gives all the teams a chance. Right now, what I see is that concern about equality is overlooked, but the focus on the bottom line isn't.

As long as the stars are in the race, everything will take care of itself. Well, right now NASCAR has some pretty big star power outside the top 35 in the Cup Series owner points -- it will be interesting to see if NASCAR takes the easy way out the next time it rains on Friday by using owner points or does everything in its power to give guys like Jamie McMurray and Kyle Petty a chance to make the field.

The powers that be need to remember this is a sport, a competition -- not something to fill up a weekend 36 weeks a year.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.