Gase going to have to sweat out Xfinity qualifying at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR Xfinity Series cars got on track for the first time of 2016 Speedweeks, and Cedar Rapids native Joey Gase got a clear picture of what he's up against in qualifying and potentially the Powershares QQQ 300 on Saturday afternoon.

Over the course of three practice sessions, Gase and his Jimmy Means Racing team did what they could to find some speed, but ultimately it just wasn't there. In single car runs, Gase was 47th of 47 and 46th of 46 in the first two practices, as most of the field was in mock qualifying runs for the three and a half hours of track time.

If Gase is going to make Saturday's race, it'll likely have to come by way of a provisional, which is never a good feeling to have headed into qualifying or race day.

'I just hope for the best, and maybe somehow we'll pick up a lot of speed tomorrow,' Gase said. 'I think if we get in on a provisional, we'll be OK. We're going to have to hope for that. As a driver, here at Daytona, qualifying-wise in single-car, I would say it's 98 percent car and 2 percent driver. I think anyone can say that. Once you're in the draft, it's more in the driver's hands. Right now it's all car.'

Gase made a pair of runs in the first session, and a handful of runs in the second session, and while his crew made several changes, the speed increases were minimal.

That Jimmy Means Racing is underfunded isn't a new thing. Means has fielded racecars since the 1980s without nearly as much funding as many other teams in the garage. Among several key pieces it takes to have success at superspeedways and restrictor plate racing, the engine and body might be the biggest.

And without access so some of the most important and useful technology that's readily available to top teams, what equipment Jimmy Means Racing does have isn't deployed the same way as others.

Gase wasn't complaining about it, but it's a reality he's well aware of when he gets to the track.

'It's hard to say where we're lacking (most). It's probably mainly in the body. It might be motor a little bit, but that's not our biggest problem,' Gase said. 'It's just hard to say. Everyone's guessing, but we're guessing the most. Everyone else can go to the pull-down, the (seven-post) shaker, the wind tunnel. We can't do any of that. Everything we do is a guess.'

What Gase hopes for now is for the provisionals to shake out the way he needs them to.

Gase's team finished 29th in the owner's standings last season, and it's those standings NASCAR uses to award provisionals in the first three races of the year. The more teams behind Gase in the owner's standings that qualify on time in the top 33 Saturday morning, the worse chance he has of making the race. He and his team need those ahead of him in points to lock themselves in on speed.

If he makes the race, Gase is confident in what his car can do in the draft. He was in the same situation at the spring Talladega race last year, and that race ended up his best ever. He ran in a draft at the end of final practice Friday, and it left him fourth on the final speed chart.

'We're probably going to have to fall back on a provisional. We can draft if we're in it. At Talladega (in 2015), we barely made the race and finished fifth,' Gase said. 'It all depends on what everyone behind us in owner's (points) does, if they get in the top 33 or not.

'(We went out to draft in practice) just to see if we could stay in the draft and what we could do in the draft. As long as someone's working with us, we can definitely be in it.'

Gase and the Xfinity Series qualify at 9 a.m. Saturday. The Xfinity Series race is at 2:30 p.m.

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