Kevin Harvick takes issue with NASCAR qualifying, calls for change

Kevin Harvick wants NASCAR to change its qualifying procedures after what happened at Phoenix this past weekend. On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick said he wants NASCAR to return to the random draw.

“I thought qualifying was anti-climatic,” Harvick said. “If we have one round, I still like that top 10 going for the pole in that second round of practice. I think we should go back to the random draw. I think the rich get richer, and when you see the last car getting the pole, yeah, that’s great. With the random draw, it mixes the field up, it adds a little bit more of that intrigue to the qualifying order because it’s different every week.

“Now we’re going to cycle into qualifying order being very similar every week. If you’re behind, you have no real chance of catching up. I don’t know why we wouldn’t want people to catch up. When you go out early, the racetrack still has rubber on it from practice. The more cars that go out, it cleans the racetrack up, then the racetrack gets faster.

Kevin Harvick wants ‘more intrigue’ in NASCAR qualifying

“If you get into that hole, it’s hard to get out of it because it starts with inspection, you’re behind. It starts with your garage stall, you’re later on the racetrack. Then your qualifying bid is almost set based upon your finish and your points. You can go forward a little bit with a good quality finish, but your points lag you down. I just think that the random draw would put a little more intrigue back into qualifying.”

NASCAR made changes to qualifying for the 2025 season. For standard practice in the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series, there is single-round qualifying at every track except for superspeedways. Also, the starting position is based on qualifying results rather than row-by-row designations according to the qualifying group.

“I think it’s going to be welcomed by the industry,” NASCAR Cup Series director Brad Moran said in December, per NASCAR.com. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback throughout the year, and we made a couple of adjustments through the year, and we really wanted to take a whole fresh look at it. A lot of this came into play back in COVID, when we tightened things up, so we’re kind of going back a little to what we used to do again. We’re going to have a little more practice, which is obviously better for the fans and the partners.”