“The reason that there’s not is because that the qualifying element has to be after a certain amount of practice. So, let’s say that practice is a minimum an hour. So, you’ve got to be on the track for an hour to practice. Once you’re through practice, it takes at least an hour. John Darby (Cup series director) will tell you an hour and 45 minutes.

“Let’s just say there’s a minimum of an hour of a turnaround to get ready for qualifying. It’s the teams getting the cars ready for inspection, the inspection process to put them out on pit road. An hour is really tight. I agree with John it should be closer to an hour and a half. Let’s just say for the sake of this conversation it’s an hour and then average qualifying is an hour and a half. We can do it in an hour and 10 minutes in Martinsville but it will take us two and a-half hours at Talladega. So, let’s say it’s an hour and a-half average.

”That’s three and a-half hours that you’ve got to be on the race track to qualify (that’s practice, turnaround time and qualifying). Just to get qualifying done. Then you’ve got to give teams time to go from qualifying to race setups. The teams, I think will tell you, they tell us certainly, that when it comes down to getting ready for a 500-mile or a 500-lap race, they want to be focused on that. That’s our bread and butter at the end of the day is the event itself, the three and a-half or four hours of racing that we do on race day. That’s what our bread and butter is. So, they’ve got to get ready for that. Well, now you’re talking about converting from qualifying to practice cars, which again let’s say is an hour and bare minimum an hour of practice, so now you’re looking at a five-hour minimum at the bare minimum, bare minimum. Maybe you could go ask other people in the garage and they would say, “Oh, no, that’s a seven-hour window.’ Let’s just say it’s a five-hour window.

“So, if we lost today, putting that five hour window into tomorrow and running the Truck race and all the elements that go with the truck race, now becomes not possible to do time wise. Our hope is that everything works well, we practice, we inspect, we qualify, we get in our final practices in, we get race ready, all that evolution of things that’s the ideal situation but that doesn’t happen. When weather doesn’t allow us to do qualifying, the next most important thing for us is being ready for the race, so we shift to that and that’s why we generally don’t move qualifying over.’’

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# This actually became the 9th time this season qualifying has been canceled when it happened Friday afternoon at Martinsville. Scott Speed in the 84 car makes it and makes his Cup deubt this weekend. Sterling Marlin and Derrike Cope go home. No one got on the track at all Friday because of the rain.

# Dale Earnhardt Jr, telling a joke about the economy he was told: The economy is worse than a divorce because you lose half your stuff and still have a wife.

# Reports abound that Petty Enterprises has had talks with DEI about merging. Merging is the only way to go in NASCAR. This is a big game of musical chairs to see who can pair up before it all stops and who is left on the outside. Pettys are in a tough spot. Reports suggest that Gillett Evernham Motorsports will switch from Dodge to Toyota after this season. Pettys get their engines from GEM. Guess is that if Toyota adds GEM (and remember Toyota will be adding JTG-Daugherty also) then it seems unlikely for Toyota to add Pettys (even if Pettys wanted to do it, which don't see). Thus, Pettys need to align with someone else -- somebody that can provide engines. Expect to hear more about the Pettys and others in the coming weeks. The biggest race is not on the track but off it for some teams.

# Rockingham has a sister track. The folks who run the 1-mile track recentluy built a half-mile track just outside the 1-mile track. The smaller track is somewhat like Martinsville, Jimmie Johnson says. Johnson tested there this week just after the track's paving was finished. He says the surface needs to be smoother. One thing that's different is the track has no walls. Johnson thought that wasn't too bad until he blew a tire in testing and got off the track and into the dirt. At one point he was headed toward his hauler in the infield but avoided the hauler and serious damage.

# Carl Edwards on Jimmie Johnson's luck in the Chase: "I don't know where Jimmie gets his horseshoes, but he's got amazing luck, and they do everything right, too.''