In an attempt to spice up qualifying, pit road speeds that are strictly enforced in races as a safety measure will be lifted for Friday night’s three-lap trip around Charlotte Motor Speedway that includes a mandatory four-time stop.

Greg Biffle anticipates cars will come down pit road in excess of 100 mph — well over the 45 mph used in races — with drivers that push the limit losing control and ending up in the infield grass.

“Practice is the thing to watch, not the real qualifying,” the Roush Fenway Racing driver said during an appearance Wednesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “The thing is, you don’t know [what will happen] until you try it.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, can you make it from the balcony into the pool without hitting the pool deck?’ There’s one way to figure it out. You can do all the calculating you want, but you’ve just got to try it.”

Another tweak announced Wednesday will allow the winner of the Sprint Fan Vote from the Showdown to advance into the main event without being on the lead lap as long as the car is in “raceable” condition as determined by Sprint Cup Series director John Darby.

Some have dubbed that the “Danica Patrick Rule,” noting that the popular Stewart-Haas Racing driver could benefit.

Patrick has finished on the lead lap in only two of 11 races this season.

“I don’t need to say any names,” David Ragan said when asked if the rule was made for any driver in particular. “We can all assume and make pretty good guesses. But there’s usually good reasons for making any rule change.”

Ragan doesn’t like the rule, even though officials said prior to last season the winner of the fan vote didn’t have to be on the lead lap.

“I don’t think that’s right,” said Ragan, who earned his way into the All-Star race with a surprise victory at Talladega Superspeedway. “You need to be competitive. It’s a contradicting rule. So you can’t be torn up and get in, but if you’re slow and not on the lead lap, why should you be in the All-Star race? In my opinion, that’s not a good rule for the intent of the All-Star race.

“The All-Star race is supposed to be about the best of the best.”

That will be the case in qualifying, where it will take skill to get on and off pit road at a higher than normal speed.

“Heck, we had trouble sliding through our pit box going 45 mph, so I can only imagine,” Ragan said. “Watch out Kurt Busch. I know he’s going to be coming down hard.”

Pit road limits have been set since 1991, the year after a Ricky Rudd’s car spun 180 degrees on pit road in Atlanta and slammed into Bill Elliott’s car. Elliott’s tire changer, Mike Rich, died after being caught in between the cars.

Other cars will not be on pit road during All-Star qualifying, and crew members will not be allowed to come over the wall until the car is stopped, which is not the case in a race.

“We’ll do that only for qualifying and only for the All-Star race because we can control the environment and it’ll be very clean down there,” NASCAR president Mike Helton said. “It’s an opportunity to do something on a weekend that is known for different stuff.”

The race will consist of four 20-lap segments and a 10-lap shootout with the winner collecting $1 million. Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith is offering another $1 million if a driver can win all five segments.

But qualifying could be the biggest spectacle.

“I can promise you guys are going to be off in the grass,” Biffle said. “I may be one of them.”

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Greg Biffle finished second and Brad Keselowski was third in the qualifying session, but they’ll start at the back after their Fords needed engine changes.

Although he ran early in a long qualifying session, Hamlin earned his first pole of the season and the 13th of his career. He won three last year, and has won the pole three times at Auto Club Speedway.

After his strong performance last year, Hamlin was confident his new Gen-6 race car would produce the same old results.

“These cars have different bodies on them, (but) they’re the same race cars we’ve been racing for a really long time, so everything pretty much correlated,” he said. “I love this racetrack. A lot of the reason is because it’s bumpy and it’s worn out. … You poll the drivers, this is one of the favorite racetracks we go to.”

Hamlin nicely shook off last week’s tumultuous performance in Bristol, where he exchanged contact with Joey Logano and eventually hit the wall in the closing laps, struggling to finish 23rd despite leading the most laps. Hamlin and Logano then had a confrontation after the race, with their teams briefly scuffling.

Biffle was right behind at 187.217 mph in his Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Keselowski was third, beating Kyle Busch’s 187.130 mph in fourth place.

But Biffle and Keselowski both had engine issues in practice, forcing them to start from the back. Given how well their cars performed with the new engines, neither driver seemed terribly concerned.

“That was a spectacular lap considering everything we did today,” Biffle said. “The guys worked really hard to get the engine changed. I got out with three minutes to go to make a lap, and we made adjustments from that lap and were able to put down a pretty fast lap. … We’re going to get a good pit stall for the race, and we’ll have to start at the back, so that’s unfortunate, but I’m proud of the car that we’re going to have for the race.”

Keselowski had his third top-10 time in five races this season, though he won’t get to enjoy it.

“I’m a little nervous about the engine issues the 16 and 2 cars both had in practice,” Keselowski said. “Hopefully those will subside for the race, and we’re both going to start in the back. … It’s unfortunate, but we will have a good time hopefully racing to the front.”

Defending champion Tony Stewart qualified eighth, and Mark Martin was ninth in front of Kurt Busch. Kasey Kahne, who won last week at Bristol, qualified 16th — right behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 15th and ahead of teammate Jimmie Johnson in 18th.

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Harvick held off Greg Biffle over a four-lap sprint Thursday to win the first 150-mile Budweiser Duel. Harvick and Biffle also went 1-2 in last Saturday night’s exhibition race.

The starting field for Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500 is set by the results from the pair of 60-lap qualifiers.

Danica Patrick started on the pole for the first race and simply needed to keep her car intact to hang on to her front row starting spot in the Daytona 500. She raced a little at the start of the duel, then faded back in the field and wound up 17th out of 23 cars.

Denny Hamlin triggered a four-car accident with 7 laps remaining

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“Nobody in the whole field had any clue what was going to happen,” he said, “so we felt like we had a good chance.”

Harvick dominated Saturday night’s exhibition Sprint Unlimited, winning the kickoff to Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway for the third time in five years. Harvick ties Tony Stewart and Dale Jarrett as three-time winners of the event, while the late Dale Earnhardt holds the record with six wins.

But no one has a firm grasp on what the season-opening Daytona 500 will look like in NASCAR’s brand new car. The non-points race only had 19 cars at the start, and the field was whittled down to 12 after an early accident.

The Daytona 500 will start with a full 43-car field in much warmer conditions.

“It’s going to be a pack, absolutely,” Harvick said. “I don’t think there’s going to be too many chances. You’ll see some cars break away. I think if you turn on a 2000 race, one of those races, it’s going to be very similar.”

Second-place finisher Greg Biffle agreed the Daytona 500 should have a throwback feel.

“I heard some guys talk about old-school racing, and it is a little bit like that,” he said. “The thing about it is that when you get 43 cars out there, it is going to be a ton different. Then the bottom lane is going to work. There will be a middle. With more cars out there I think it will be better.”

Fans hope so after Saturday night, which was somewhat uneventful because of a nine-car accident just 15 laps into the race. It turned the final two segments into something resembling a parade until a late push to catch Harvick.

Harvick threw a block on Biffle and Stewart, Joey Logano couldn’t get to the leaders and Matt Kenseth, who might have had the strongest car, faded late as Harvick rolled to the win. He led 40 of the 75 laps.

“I’m glad we got Speedweeks started off the right way,” he said.

The race was split into three segments and fans got to vote on the format. The result was 30 laps, 25 laps and then a 20-lap sprint to the finish.

But several big names were knocked out a mere 15 laps into the race. Stewart was running second when he cut across the front of Marcos Ambrose, making slight contact that turned Stewart sideways and required a save to keep from crashing. Traffic stacked up behind him, triggering a chain-reaction, nine-car crash that wiped out seven cars.

Taken out were defending race winner Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin from Joe Gibbs Racing, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson from Hendrick Motorsports, Mark Martin and Kurt Busch.

“I didn’t see much. I was just cruising along and I saw sparks in front of me — I knew that wasn’t good,” Johnson said.

It was a costly crash for Kurt Busch, who also wrecked in practice Friday and has two damaged race cars just two days into Speedweeks. His Furniture Row Racing team was getting assistance from Richard Childress Racing on car repairs to ensure Busch has enough in the fleet to get to the Daytona 500.

“We’re going to help them in any way we can,” Childress said. “We’ll probably have one of those cars back (Sunday), repaired. We got two or three more back at the shop.”

Stewart, who took responsibility for triggering the crash, went on to “win” the first segment.

“I made a move for the lead and probably was a little anxious too early,” Stewart said of his first segment gaffe.

Fans then voted for the drivers to make a four-tire change during a pit stop between the first and second segment, and it was largely Harvick’s race from there. He dominated the final two segments, and held off challenges from Stewart and Biffle on the final lap to win in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.

It’s a strong opener to what’s going to be Harvick’s final year with RCR. He’s already signed on to drive for Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014.

“It’s about winning races,” Harvick said. “The politics and everything are one thing, but when we get to the race track it’s about sitting in this race car making it as fast as it will go. And those (RCR) guys, they don’t care about anything but winning and wanting to do good, so we owe it to them and everybody at (sponsor) Budweiser.”

Budweiser was the longtime sponsor of the race, which was called the Budweiser Shootout until series sponsor Sprint took over the rights this year.

Harvick broke his engine trying to do a celebratory burnout, and his car had to be pushed to Victory Lane.

Biffle finished second and Logano was third in his Penske Racing debut. Stewart was fourth and Kenseth fifth in his Joe Gibbs Racing debut.

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