A Friday rush and wasted Saturday for the Cup teams

Today is the day to hustle for the Cup teams, they arrived early this morning and with the new qualifying rules, they are in a rush today.  They get their two practice sessions, basically back to back, wait a little while, qualify tonight and then get their cars impounded until Sunday's race.  If that doesn't seem like enough for one day, the Craftsman Truck Series also practices, the Busch Series get a a couple practice session, trucks qualify and then race tonight after all the qualifying is over.  As you can see it's a very busy Friday at Atalanta.

What's on tap for Saturday?  Busch Series qualifying and then they race.

Sounds a bit lopsided to me.  Why put so much into Friday and only a couple of things on Saturday?  Maybe the speedway has other things going on on Saturday that made them schedule things this way, but the Cup guys have a wasted day.  They can't work on the cars because they're impounded, so unless they're pulling double duty and racing and/or working in the Busch Series, they're just going to sit around on Saturday.

I still think it was a big mistake to get rid of Happy Hour.  NASCAR wants the races to be exciting with a lot of racing, giving them that extra practice can help make the racing that much better.  Yes, it makes it more competitive by putting pressure on the teams to get the setup perfect the first time, but if any team misses the setup, it can lead to a very boring race with one car running away with it.  While every fan loves to see their driver win, we want to see exciting racing and when one driver runs away with it, even if it's our favorite, it's just not as exciting or fun.

Maybe I'm in the minority, I don't know, but cramming everything into Friday and having them sit around on Saturday doesn't seem to do anyone any good, the drivers, teams, the track, nor NASCAR.  I just wish they would bring Happy Hour back.