No fluke: #3 is back at Daytona

Holy mackerel.

Austin Dillon won the pole for the 2014 Daytona 500. Deal with it people.

Since the news broke of Dillon’s two-lap success that sent him to the top of the scoring pylon at the Daytona International Speedway today, the NASCAR fan community has been going nuts over it. And not in a positive way.

Comments on Twitter and Facebook have been running rampant for the past few hours.

NASCAR fixed it so that the #3 car got the pole…give me a break!

I see the entire situation like this.

Austin Dillon is going to go through almost exactly what Dale Earnhardt Jr. had to from February 2001 until now. He will be competing in the shadow of Big E.

While Earnhardt brought a ton to the sport, is one of the sports biggest names and most successful driver, to have to measure up to him is just tough. If you think you know something about pressure, just as Dillon and Junior.

Now, for NASCAR to fix this without making it too obvious, they would need to lay the rear spoiler down a little bit, or give them a slightly bigger restrictor plate.

But, the problem with this is that its not tested and the risk outweighs the rewards…

Now. Take a look at the other RCR cars and where they were in the final qualifying result. Newman was 5th, Menard was 10th and Scott ended up 13th. All three sat in the top three during the session. So NASCAR is in the business of fixing qualifying now?

Sure, the #3 on pole is great for the sport being in the news. Yep, Danica Patrick winning the pole last year was good for the sport, but as someone who was at the track, felt the winds dying down throughout the session and actually standing next to NASCAR officials as the car was inspected before being awarded pole…

Drivers, owners, team members and associated sponsors wouldn’t let NASCAR rig anything. Period.

To quote a friend of mine, “If NASCAR was in the business of fixing races Danica would have at least one win, Junior would have at least one championship, and Jimmie Johnson wouldn’t have 6.”