Clint Bowyer hates random qualifying — does he have a point?

People do not, historically, understand randomness. We don’t need to get into it (it’s not interesting) but there’s a reason casinos make billions on roulette tables: there’s just no way black can come up 15 times in a row, that would be so random!

That sort of gambler’s fallacy shows up in Bob Pockrass’ mentions every time NASCAR unveils its random qualifying draw. NASCAR instituted this to limit on-track action because, and I can’t believe I need to say this, 140,000 people are dead in the United States because of a global pandemic.

You do not need to look hard to find someone who feels hard done by this random draw. There are conspiracy theorists, of course, but also those just frustrated by bad luck and the lack of practice and qualifying time. Clint Bowyer let his frustrations known on Twitter on Wednesday night after a mediocre draw, which sent me down a rabbit hole: How close to reality has this system been?

First: The drivers missing track time certainly have a point. It takes time to nail a setup that is now truncated. Some drivers are excellent qualifiers (Aric Almirola, as seen in the below Spider Chart from the excellent Motorsports Analytics) and are losing out on that part of their skillset.