The “Boris Said problem”
Posted on January 25, 2008
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I found a good article that I thought I’d share. The article is titled “Even When NASCAR Gets It Right, They Get It Wrong.” The topic centers on the current state of Nascar and the problems associated with the top 35 rule. Its extremely relevant to this site because after getting burned by the rule twice last year, Boris Said has become an example of the issue. Here’s a quote from the article that mention’s Boris Said:
“Let’s take the Boris Said example from this past season. Boris peeled off a screamer of a lap at Daytona and was on the pole, with but a few people left to qualify - none of whom would have been able to knock him off the pole either - when the skies opened up and down came the rain. NASCAR cancelled the rest of qualifying and set the field on owner’s points thus knocking Boris, not only off the pole but out of the race entirely because he was one of the go-or-go-homers that are out of the top 35 in owner points.
Apply this situation to the new set of rules and nothing has changed, all of the “go-or-go-homers” would still have to go home because they are qualifying at the end of qualifying and that is when the rain started. NASCAR’s solution to fix the “Boris Said problem” still wouldn’t have fixed it, and he still would have been sent home after the new rules were in place.
This happened twice to Boris last year, and NASCAR’s solution to make the “go-or-go-homers” qualify at the end of the qualifying session and under the new rules he still would have missed those races.”
Check out the full article at the Nascar Ranting and Raving Blog
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2 Responses to “The “Boris Said problem””
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As a daily reader of that blog and frequent commentor you’ll see my response to the quote you post, but I’ll repeat the gist of them here.
As publicly stated by NASCAR the rule change wasn’t targeted at events like Boris Said’s.
It was designed to place all “go or go home” teams together to give them the same environment to qual under, i.e. track temps, amount of rubber laid down, setting sun etc. They also made clear the group would qual last so any that had mechanical/”crash” problems would have more time for repairs prior to their qual time.
None of this is to say I believe Boris didn’t get the royal shaft but the only thing that would prevent a reoccurrence is to allow any rained out portion of quals to be restarted whenever possible.
Of course it sucks that it rained and Boris lost his spot, but what really gets me is the automatic entry for the point leaders. Doesn’t it make more sense to have the fastest cars in the race for better competition?
There should not be a group of “go or go home” teams. That is this issue at hand here. It is not just because Boris got screwed out of two races, it is because the whole top 35 system is flawed. These problems will happen again and again every season.