John Harrelson / Getty Images for NASCAR

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is one of the drivers unhappy with changes to the format for the 2009 Bud Shootout format.

OPINION

By Reid Spencer

updated 4:34 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2008

Frankly, I was amazed.

The depth of feeling about recent announced changes to the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway — from fans and drivers alike — absolutely floored me.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't like the five laps added to what will now be a 75-lap non-points season kickoff, which will be contested in segments of 25 and 50 laps.

"Fifty laps is forever on that track," Earnhardt said after NASCAR, Anheuser-Busch and the speedway announced changes to the race. "It would be a lot more exciting for the fans and a lot more fun for us if we only did 10 laps at the end."

If Earnhardt objects to the added length of the race and the length of the final segment, others have been affected adversely by the new qualifying format. No longer will the race field consist of pole winners from the previous season and prior winners of the event.

Under the new system, cars — not drivers — will qualify for the Shootout, based on their owner points rank from the previous season. Accordingly, the top six cars of each of the four Cup manufacturers — Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge and Toyota — will have their tickets punched.

Though NASCAR presented the changes as a shift in focus from drivers to manufacturers, the compelling reason for changing the qualifying format has more to do with sponsorship. When the Budweiser brand was attached to both the Cup pole award and the Shootout, there wasn't a problem.

When a competing brand, Coors Light, took over the pole award sponsorship, there was an obvious, de facto conflict, one that makes you wonder what NASCAR was thinking when the sanctioning body allowed rival brands to put their names on events that were inextricably related. NASCAR's answer was to remove the conflict by changing the eligibility requirements.

"We had been talking about how to freshen the Shootout anyway, but I won't kid you — with Coors having the pole winner — that obviously hastened the discussion," said Tony Ponturo, vice president of global media and sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch.

Trust me. The divorce from Coors was every bit as important to A-B as any changes designed to spice up the competition.

But will the competition improve? As far as 2009 is concerned, there already are built-in inequities in the starting field. The top six Chevrolets all made the Chase this year. The top Dodge, Kasey Kahne's No. 9, was 13th after Richmond, on the outside looking in.

Tony Stewart's switch to Chevrolet at Stewart-Haas Racing next season knocks Smoke out of the field, even though he's a three-time winner of the event. Ryan Newman, Stewart's new teammate next year, won't race either, even though he won the 50th Daytona 500 in February and won the pole at Phoenix in April.

Stewart's current car, however, is eligible. That means rookie Joey Logano will get to drive the No. 20 Toyota in the Shootout while Stewart watches. Three other pole winners who assumed they had qualified for the race — Joe Nemechek, Patrick Carpentier and Paul Menard — later discovered they had not.

Here's a suggestion that will relieve some of the consternation in the garage and in the grandstands. Rather than change the rules mid-year, call 2009 a transition year for the Shootout and reward pole-sitters, former race winners and six cars from each manufacturer (if not otherwise qualified) with starting spots in the field.

In other words, give the fans the best show possible. After all, they're the ones who buy the tickets.

Allmendinger another mystery
In another "What were they thinking?" scenario, I fail to fathom AJ Allmendinger's departure from Red Bull Racing — from either side's point of view.

On Sunday, I watched Allmendinger suffer a pit road speeding penalty and race his way from the back of the field to a ninth-place finish, best among Toyota drivers. The backdrop to that story involved Allmendinger turning down an offer to drive for Red Bull for another season, because the term of the deal was a single year.

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I can understand Allmendinger's desire for job security, but it's unlikely he'll find a ride of comparable quality. Under the leadership of Jay Frye, Red Bull is a team on the move with excellent equipment. Allmendinger's talents clearly mesh with the operation, and Red Bull is the ideal place to showcase them. One can only infer that he's getting bad advice.

The organization clearly has an allegiance to former Formula One driver Scott Speed, who likely will replace Allmendinger in the Cup car. Nevertheless, I'm disappointed that Red Bull didn't fight harder to keep Allmendinger in the fold. He's a smart, personable driver whose improvement since the start of the season has been glaringly obvious.

Too bad we won't have the chance to see how good this combination of team and driver could have been.