Gordon Takes Daytona Pole But Not Without Controversy

Pole-sitter Jeff Gordon is definitely happy after Sunday's qualifying round for the Daytona 500, but not everyone shares that joy because of some changes NASCAR has made. 

NASCAR has moved to a new group-qualifying format. This means that multiple cars are on the track at the same time instead of the way the old system worked where a single car would take a few laps by itself. The idea is for qualifying conditions to resemble race conditions more closely. However, what it's done is prompted a fair amount of jockeying for position and Sunday, it resulted in a crash.

Reed Sorenson was trying to hold his position in a drafting line by blocking Clint Bowyer, but instead, they both collided, wrecking both cars. Afterward, Bowyer expressed his displeasure saying the new format is: "a mess. Just typical."

Gordon's qualifying time was the fifth-fastest for a pole sitter in Daytona history, and the first since 1987 to top an average of 200 miles per hour. During the off-season, Gordon announced 2015 would be his final season as a full-time driver.