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Gentlemen, start your engines!

Those are the most famous words in sports, or so says the man over the public address system at the beginning of every NASCAR race. Once spoken, 43 drivers flip their switches, igniting their colorful stock cars as they ready to drive faster and longer in a short period of time than most of us can imagine. On any given race Sunday, or on the occasional Saturday night, it's a battle of 43 very competitive individuals, all wanting their day to end in Victory Lane.

A question that often pops up is why 43? What is so special about that number that NASCAR has mandated it as the magic number, the maximum number of drivers that can run each race?

I recall racing champion Darrell Waltrip tackling that question last year during one of the races. He ended up saying something like 'just because'. As always, DW has his own unique way of answering some questions. However, he's not far from the truth. It was a bit of a coin toss as to how NASCAR came to that number of 43.

Back in the day, there really wasn't a limit to the number of drivers who could take on a race. Usually, the field was limited more by the track itself than anything else. A track with lots of pit stalls would have up to 80 cars participating. The very famous Daytona track had fifty or so in the field. Then there were smaller tracks that meant only 30 or 32 drivers could win a starting spot. It all depended on the size of the track and how many pit stalls they had available.

In the late eighties and early nineties, the number of starting positions began to stabilize, based largely on the number of pit stalls a track had. Generally, a set number of entrants was decided, based on qualifying speeds with a few provisional openings allowed for cars in the top 35 of owner's points. Then in 1990, the super speed tracks slotted in 40 drivers with two provisionals. It was still a bit less at the smaller tracks, but the procedures used were identical.

After that, popularity came into play. In 2009, NASCAR changed the rules governing who would participate in the Bud Shootout. It was a surprise to everyone. It wasn't long, though, before they altered their new rules, adding wild-cards to the race. The reason for this is called, even by the drivers, The Tony Stewart Rule. Had NASCAR not added the wild-card, Stewart would not have been in the Bud Shootout.

It was this same logic that was used when the Past Champions slot was added to the field. Initially, it was to accommodate the King, Richard

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