Waltrip proposes changes in qualifying draws

Michael Waltrip, along with all the other 2007 teams that failed to begin the season with “starting-field protection," experienced tremendous difficulty, and the veteran driver has made a proposal governing the qualifying process.

Waltrip won a pole but made the field for only 14 races and finished in the top 10 only twice.

“I have been politicking since the start of the year for NASCAR to put the ‘star’ cars together in the qualifying draw," he said. “I still don’t understand NASCAR’s hesitation in (not) doing so. It would be very fair, certainly a lot fairer than it is now. At Phoenix, I went out (by random draw) in the heat of the day. The cars I was racing against to get in the show got to go in the evening. I wish NASCAR would have listened because I think we would have been fine."

None of Michael Waltrip Racing’s three Toyotas — Waltrip, Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann — made the starting field for the next-to-last race at Phoenix.

“It came at a time when we were seeing a lot of progress and a lot of gains within our teams," noted Waltrip. Gaston Gazette