 This special provisional allowed a former Cup champion to claim the final starting position if he was too low in the points standings and was unable to qualify by speed.The past champion's provisional worked perfectly until 1997, when Darrell Waltrip failed to make the UAW-GM Quality 500 lineup because Terry Labonte was the more recent champion and was higher in points.NASCAR considered revising the guidelines to the past champion's provisional after Waltrip used it to enter 20 races in 1998.