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NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 1, 2019

Scott Miller

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks to all the media who have logged on to talk about today's announcement.
As you saw, we've moved to single‑car, single‑round qualifying starting at Dover and for the remainder of the season. We have Scott Miller here to talk about that a little bit.
Scott, maybe start off with going over some of the reasoning behind the move to single‑car qualifying.
SCOTT MILLER: Well, we've all seen how group qualifying evolved. With the teams all waiting until the last minute, being allotted a block of time and only taking advantage of the last two or three minutes of it, it became problematic from a content standpoint, and also from a storytelling standpoint from the broadcaster and radio perspective and that.
It was very hard to figure out who was doing what when it was only like a two‑minute session. A lot of times some of the polesitters weren't covered very well because they were kind of surprise polesitters or whatnot. That and just restoring general order.
One of the things that was compelling to me about doing this as we talked to broadcasters was the fact that that ghost car technology has gotten really good. I think it's going to be a pretty good story for them to tell, comparing each car to the fastest car that's gone, being able to see who drove in deep, who rolled the middle fast, who got off the corner, all of those sorts of things.
All of that kind of led to today's announcement and the decision to go to single‑car.
THE MODERATOR: We can take questions at this time.

Q. Was there simply no way for NASCAR to work with the teams and get the teams onboard with the vision of trying to make an entertaining and compelling qualifying session?
SCOTT MILLER: Well, it's kind of like we tried a few different iterations. We talked about a lot of different other things that we might do. But the fact remained that the teams are always going to do, and I understand, I've been on that side of the fence, they're always going to do what benefits them the most. Unfortunately that was waiting, drafting, trying to position themselves, which they weren't using the time block and it wasn't a very compelling show.
We owe it to our fans to provide something that's worth watching. We felt that started to become less than that.

Q. How much did you consider having different formats for different tracks? What was maybe the overlying factor to just be consistent for all ovals?
SCOTT MILLER: That's one thing, is consistency for the fan. I mean, one of the things that to me is getting back a little bit to our roots with the single‑car qualifying is everybody can understand it. I mean, if you looked up on the screen, and the sound was off, just about any kind of hardcore fan to a casual fan can understand what's going on there. What we had before, not so much.
We felt like consistency and that visual week after week, series after series, kind of gets us back to a point where everybody kind of understands what we're doing.

Q. What was the theory behind figuring out the qualifying order, maybe not using practice speeds but going to the previous week?
SCOTT MILLER: Well, practice speeds are very problematic. That could start a whole 'nother cycle of development, trying to figure out how to run your car light in practice because we don't officiate practice. We certainly didn't want to open that can of worms at all.
Also, to make a compelling show, we need to make sure that a car stands a chance to win the pole is actually the last car out. We think that typically everybody that qualifies in the top 20 in an event stands a chance of sitting on the pole in a subsequent event. That was the pool we selected to come out of the draw of the last 20 spots to go.
Also, rather than just going off of points or something, that gives every week some incentive for teams to qualify better and get in what is typically the draw that everybody wants to have, the later draw.

Q. Obviously we saw at Richmond where you made the change, changing the time, making an adjustment there. For Dover, was there a consideration to trying something else before finalizing something before Kansas? Obviously the mile‑and‑a‑half's were the big issue. Was there a look at trying to do one more thing this weekend before making a final decision?
SCOTT MILLER: It came at this point because it's as good a point as any, honestly. We landed on where we wanted to be. We talked about a whole lot of other things, but nothing really jumped out as something that would work for us over the long haul except for this.
Once we landed on that decision, kind of went through all the particulars with the broadcast partners and everybody else involved, there wasn't any reason to wait.

Q. When you talk about not going over the long haul, does that mean it could work at some tracks, some things wouldn't work at others?
SCOTT MILLER: It's worked at some tracks, there's no question about it. To be consistent, like I said with the last questions, this is where we landed. This is what will work in our eyes everywhere.

Q. You've always said the best teams in the world figure it out kind of thing. We'll be debating this on the air, whatnot. Does this at all change the nature of who will be good, who will start better in the starting lineup, some people better off figuring out single lap? In your gut, will this change who stacks up well?
SCOTT MILLER: I think that what we saw with the group qualifying, especially at the mile‑and‑a‑half's, was occasionally somebody jumping up in there that you may not have expected to be as far up in the order as what they normally would be.
If you really boil it down to who qualified well at those races, it was still the top teams that qualified well and figured it out. So I think group qualifying, single‑car qualifying, the races, the cream ‑ old cliché ‑ is always going to rise to the top. I think we saw that happening with group qualifying. I think we will again see that happening with single‑car qualifying.

Q. When you had the group qualifying initially, you were hopeful the teams would buy into it, that it would work, and it didn't. What was the reason that you didn't just go to this form of qualifying initially, you hesitated doing it in the first place?
SCOTT MILLER: Well, I mean, we obviously want to put on the best show that we can. We thought that had potential. That's why we gave it a go. Obviously it didn't work out like we thought it would.
I mean, we're in the business of trying to put on great racing and a good show at the same time. We will adjust and do what we feel like we need to do whenever we feel like we're not delivering as much as we should be.

Q. After the California deal, it was brought up that the drivers would win this argument in the long run. Does NASCAR see this as a concession to the drivers for the way things went down, their reticence to adapt to the single‑car qualifying effort?
SCOTT MILLER: No, not really. I don't know that it's as much of a driver‑specific thing as it is a team‑specific thing. We were probably asking a little much of them to not do everything that they could do from a competitive standpoint to make their position and their chances of qualifying well better. That's what their job is. We thought we could maybe put a few rules in and kind of get it to a place where it would work. That didn't work out for us or for any of the fans and honestly for you all. I'm sure you don't want to write about what was going on any more than we wanted it to happen.
We just reacted to a situation. We'll do that in the future. Whether it's a driver issue, a team issue, or something that we've totally done wrong, we'll always work to make things better.

Q. Do you still feel the teams are at fault for this not working out ultimately?
SCOTT MILLER: No, I don't really think anybody's at fault. I think it's something that we tried to try to provide a good show. We were optimistic. It didn't work out.
I think maybe we should have been more proactive. Maybe they should have given a little bit, whatever the case is. I don't think necessarily they're to blame or we're to blame. It's just we put something new out there with the rules package, and this didn't work out for us. That's it.
We tried to cooperate with them. They tried to cooperate a little bit. But like I said before, they're always going to default to what is best for their competitive position, and I don't blame them for that. That's kind of just where we are.

Q. This format has gone pretty much unnoticed the last five years. Do you still feel group qualifying as a theme is viable in a different environment, and this current package makes it untenable?
SCOTT MILLER: I believe that, quite frankly, it delivered kind of what we had hoped for for a little while. I mean, just like anything, I think it became old hat and wasn't necessarily contributing to delivering a good story.
One of the things as we talked through this, what the television program would look like, it was interesting to me in that with the new technology and the different ways that we have now to present single‑car qualifying that we didn't have when it was the mainstream will actually provide I think a very compelling show and one that any fan can completely understand.

Q. With the group qualifying, in most cases it had been reduced to about an hour's worth of time. Going forward, will you have to make any adjustments to the weekend schedule? Was TV concerned at all that the block of time would expand?
SCOTT MILLER: The block of time at this point is not expanding. We're going to be able to fit this into the hour timeframe. It will be probably two cars a half a lap apart or something at a lot of the tracks to get the timing to work out. For instance, when somebody takes the white flag, we may send the next car to go on his out lap. That scenario obviously will vary with the track length and lap time and all that. Our intention right now is to fit the block into an hour.
We've also built in three two‑minute breaks during the session so that TV can go to spots and we don't have to break away from live action. I think that's another actual really good plus here, is that all of the teams stand a chance for some airtime for their sponsors much more so than we had in group qualifying.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you to all the media who hopped on this afternoon. Really appreciate your time on a short notice here. Appreciate all your coverage all season long. For those traveling to Dover, we'll see you this weekend.
SCOTT MILLER: Thanks a lot. Appreciate y'all.

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