36 Races

Will Denny Hamlin's Injury Affect His 2010 Performance?

2010-01-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

The big story right now is Denny Hamlin's injury. We are seeing a lot of discussion out there wondering whether his 2010 start will be just as good as his 2009 ending. Some of the PR from the Joe Gibbs camp is that this will be no problem.

Let's compare some recent examples of NASCAR injuries.

In 2009, Carl Edwards broke his right foot in September. In the following twelve races after the injury (the last twelve of 2009), he had three Top Tens, and a total of ZERO Top Fives. His average finish was 19th.

But in the twelve races BEFORE the injury, he had five Top Fives, six Top Tens, and finished all twelve of those races on the lead lap in the top 20, for an average finish of 10th.

Clearly his injury made a difference, as those two sets of a dozen races were like two totally different drivers. An injured Carl Edwards is like Casey Mears on a good day. Huge drop.

But you could say Edwards's injury was much more severe from a driving point of view than Hamlin's ACL tear in his left knee. Very different than Edwards broken right foot - but still, a lot of people at that time thought Edwards wouldn't suffer from the injury. The result suggest an immediate drop in performance.

The other notable injury was Jimmie Johnson, who before the 2007 season started broke his wrist by falling off the roof of a golf cart. After the first dozen races in 2007, he had four wins and was second in points, eventually winning the title that year. I guess you can't complain about that.

Based on such good results, Jimmie Johnson came back before the 2009 season with a gash in his left hand. He didn't start the season nearly as strong as in 2007, but still came back to win the title. Again, no complaints here.

We also saw Jeff Gordon's back issues come up this year, but he held strong for a third place chase finish, though you kept wondering if he could have been closer to winning the title had he not been injured.

In 2006 we saw defending champion Tony Stewart's nasty injury cause him to miss the Chase, even though in those final ten races he had extraordinary performance.

The lesson here is if you want to get injured, do it before the season starts, so you have time to recover. Injuries that happen in the summer or later could spell doom, since there just isn't enough time to recover. Hamlin might have a slow start to the year, but it shouldn't affect his overall standings assuming he qualifies for the Chase.

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Jeff Burton, Ryan Newman most affected by Track Length Changes in 2009

2010-01-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

We saw the news recently that NASCAR decided to make changes to the lengths of two races. You can find the details here.

The basic summary is:

The first Phoenix race is getting longer.
The second Fontana race is getting shorter.

Of course the main question on our mind is which drivers will these changes affect the most?

Let's consider all drivers who have raced in at least five of the last ten events at Phoenix or Fontana. (Our analysis will exclude less experienced drivers like Joey Logano and Marcos Ambrose, but does that honestly really concern you here?)

If we compare average starting position with average finishing position, we can see which drivers did the best job increasing their track position during the course of the race (Sorry Dave Blaney.)

Based on that, we can estimate that in a longer race, those drivers should continue to have more opportunity to improve their position. In a shorter race they'll be hurt the most.

In the Phoenix example, notice the big winner here is Jeff Burton. Look for him to take advantage of the longer Phoenix race to come up with a better finish. Other notables on here include Bobby Labonta, Mark Martin, and Jimmie Johnson. Maybe retired drivers like Kyle Petty and Dale Jarrett could help a struggling team by taking the wheel for the Phoenix race, as they do a good job of improving their race standing as well.

On the flip side, the longer race spells trouble for guys like Jeff Gordon, Brian Vickers, Dale Jr, Kasey Kahne, and Ryan Newman. More time at Phoenix means more time going backwards.

Now let's consider the opposite problem, which is Fontana's race-shortening.

In this case, the guys who lose position during the race will get the help, since the shorter race means less time to keep getting passed. Congrats Greg Biffle and Martin Truex Jr. The Roush cars of Matt Kenseth, David Ragan, and Carl Edwards are the big losers here. They usually qualify poorly, but do a great job during the race to make up spots. The shorter race means they need to improve their Friday results.

Obviously this isn't exact science, but they are nevertheless some helpful indicators of what changes we might see at these two tracks from the past. This might also help your fantasy leagues and (legal where available) gambling opportunities.

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Toyota Drivers Helped the Stock Market Most in 2009

2010-01-16T09:22:00.000-05:00

Late in 2008 I did some analysis, showing which drivers over their careers helped the stock market the most. Who do you root for if you want the stock market to go up? And which winners hit your wallet the most?

I resurrect the data for the 2009 season. I considered the first trading day after a race, and compared the performance of the S&P 500 to the winning driver and manufacturer of the most recent race. Here is what I found out:

Kyle Busch's four wins produced a total stock market gain of 5.7%.

Matt Kenseth's two wins to start the season caused an 8% loss in the stock market. Despite not doing any other damage on the track the rest of the year, his two wins in February did enough damage to everybody's wallets for the whole year. If you look at my list from 2008, the -8 percent Kenseth displayed this past year is enough to put him in the bottom echelon of *all-time performers*

Maybe people don't like Jimmie Johnson that much, but his seven wins turned into a positive 4 percent gain in the stock market, good for all of us.

And despite Mark Martin's -6.7% contribution in 2009, his career totals still put him in the top 10 of all time positive contributors.

Now let's just consider the per-race *average* stock market performance for wins. So Matt Kenseth's negative 8 percent over 2 wins is a negative 4 percent average on this table.

Here we see a lot of single-race winners near the top: David Reutimann, Joey Logano, Jamie McMurray all had a single win, but were able to parlay those wins into positive market performances.

On the flip side, Brad Keselowski and Brian Vickers had individual wins which really hurt the market the next day.

Notice Tony Stewart, in a new role as owner-driver, had a very quiet 0.1% contribution per win. Not rocking the boat at all.

Finally, the most intriguing result of all: Toyota was the only manufacturer that produced a positive stock market effect all year. Maybe the foreign automakers aren't that bad after all?

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Comparing Points vs Watermills in 2009 Chase

2010-01-10T09:21:00.000-05:00

As we've discussed before, the simplicity of the Watermill Score is that it can summarize the entire NASCAR points system with just 4 basic inputs:

Wins
Top 10s
Lead Lap Finishes
Races at the Finish

Just a simple count of each of these gives you the Watermill Score, and it is almost 100 percent correlated with the real points system.

We've seen it work over the course of an entire season, but what happens if we just look at it during the 10-race Chase, where championships are now decided.

Consider this table, which is ranked by how many points each driver scored during the 10 Chase Races:

You will see the color-coded groupings, showing that each set of drivers with similar points also had similar Watermill scores. The relationship holds consistent from top to bottom.

Look at how tight the groups are:

The drivers with 26 watermills were within 35 points of each other
The drivers with 21-23 watermills were 65 points of each other
The drivers with 18-19 watermills were 67 points of each other

The bottom line here is that what holds up over 36 races also holds up in the end-of-season Chase. The Watermill score is a great predictor of points, and the simple breakdown allows teams to properly strategize during the race.

The grid also shows that if you could finish each race on the lead lap, that would earn you 20 watermills right there. Most of the title is decided just on consistency.

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Visualizing Points Accumulation in 2009

2009-12-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

With the way the Sprint Cup points are handed out, sometimes it is easy to lose track of the big picture.

In today's post, I look at a couple ways to visualize the points accumulation, so that it doesn't seem so cumbersome.

I consider two approaches: First considering the total points, and second, looking at the Points Per Race (PPR) average across all 36 races.

I considered the top 20 in points all year, and I did not count the Chase-resetting of points, so what you see are the actual total points each driver earned on their own across the entire season. No artificial additives here.

As always, click on the images for larger versions.

In the first table, you see points color coded by each set of a thousand. I also boxed the 12th place points during the season, as well as the 26th race, to give people a reference point.

We notice many interesting things, here are some tidbits:

1) Only three drivers got to 5000 points this year

2) The points leader can hit new 1000 point levels every 6-8 races, while the 20th place driver only gets them every 10 races or so.

3) Notice the leader got to 2000 by race 14. It took until race 20 for everybody else to get above 2000 points. And at that same race, the leader had just passed 3000.

Now take a look at the PPR progression during the season. Here are the colors reference each 10 points per race average.

When you look at in terms of average points per race, the differences across drivers are much more subtle.

Consider that the end-of-year difference between 7th and 14th in points is only a measly 5 points per race.

They key to being a contender for the title hunt is to move out of the 120s range and into the 130s. The superstars are averaging 140s during the season. Remember, 8th place gets 142 points in a race, and 9th place gets 138. So an average of 140 isn't that hard to do, if you can finish on the lead lap, avoid mistakes and wrecks. That consistency each race turns into a huge points gap by the end, as we see in the first table.

Notice the 12th place in points column, hanging around mostly 117-121 points per race during the season, except right before the Chase cutoff, when the average moved up to 123 points per race. Kyle Busch even said he thought he needed just 3160 points to make the Chase. But the competition got so heated by that point that even his 3195 didn't make it. Nobody accounted for the averages picking up so much.

Last year notice only 2 drivers made it above 5000 points, and 20th place was consistently BELOW 100 PPR. This year we saw more points in that department, probably because of all the start-and-park guys guaranteeing higher finishes for everybody else.

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Correlation Matrix of Top 25 Drivers in 2009

2009-12-10T08:35:00.000-05:00

Back in July, we took a look at mid-season correlations among drivers.

We found at the time that Kasey Kahne and Jimmie Johnson had the highest correlation among any pair of drivers.

Now that the season is over, we can finish that analysis and take a look at which drivers had the most similar finishes

You can click on the image for a larger version.

That correlation between Kahne and Johnson broke down by the finish, and you see they aren't even one of the highlighted "extreme" cases.

High positive correlation means the drivers often finished well together and poorly together, while high negative correlation means one driver finished well while the other finished poorly, and vice versa. Correlations close to 0 means the two drivers had performances unrelated to each other.

Among the 12 chase drivers, we find the most correlated pairs are
.37 Mark Martin and Ryan Newman
.32 Tony Stewart and Juan Montoya
.31 Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards
.30 Carl Edwards and Brian Vickers

The least correlated chase pairs were
-.36 Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle
-.32 Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne
-.31 Mark Martin and Brian Vickers

The overall highest correlation was .41 between teammates Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick.

Harvick also paired in the other two highest correlations, .40 with both Jeff Gordon and .40 with AJ Allmendinger.

The most negative correlation pairs were
-.48 Marcos Ambrose and Jeff Gordon
-.45 Ambrose and Harvick
-.45 Montoya and Jeff Burton

What's interesting here is to notice how well teammates do with each other. Positive correlations between teammates mean that they tend to perform well together and badly together, a sign that their teams have them dialed in about the same. We already saw that with Harvick and Bowyer, and we notice it as well between Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, who score a very high .38 between each other.

The correlations also suggest who has similar driving styles. Notice we see smart, conservative drivers like Martin and Newman together up there, along with aggressive pairs like Montoya/Stewart, Johnson/Edwards, and Edwards/Vickers up top.

Pairs of drivers with opposite driving styles will have negative correlations, so not surprising to see Montoya and Burton with a very negative number, as Montoya is overly aggressive and Burton is a smart and smooth racer. Maybe that's also why you see two very rough drivers in Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin have a high correlation between each other.

As you check out the grid yourself, you will be able to see your favorite driver paired against all the others, and see how they stack up compared to each other.

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Comparing Different Points Standings for 2009

2009-12-05T05:00:00.000-05:00

We all know that under the Chase format, Jimmie Johnson was the 2009 Champion. But let's take a look at some other points systems, and what would have happened.

1) If we used the Formula 1 System all year, with no Chase reset, Jimmie Johnson would have been the champion as well.

Notice non-chasers Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth would have been in the top 12 here, replacing Ryan Newman and Brian Vickers.

We would have had a very tight race for second place among Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, and Denny Hamlin.

Only 34 drivers would have scored any points. Could you devise a system where those 34 drivers automatically qualify for the first five races of 2010?

2) If we used only the full standings after 36 races, without any Chase reset, we would see four distinct groups of drivers:

First off, Johnson, Gordon, and Stewart would be the class of the field, all within 100 points of each other.

Behind them would be the trio of Hamlin, Martin, and Kurt Busch, all between 300-400 points back.

Then you'd see a large group of eight drivers all 600-800 points behind Johnson. Notice Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth, despite missing the Chase, outscored Vickers and Kasey Kahne by enough points to knock them out of these top 12 in points. Vickers did so poorly in the final 10 races of the year, that he would have finished 16th overall had their not been a Chase reset.

3) If we ran the Chase *without* any bonus points for wins, you would have seen an almost identical final standings. The only differences would have been swaps for 6th and 7th, along with 10th and 11th.

As we've seen in past years, these Chase bonus points are almost entirely meaningless, and not worth fighting for.

4) If you gave one point for every place (so a win equals 43 points, and a last place finish equals 1 point), then we could see the standings here:

Basically, you could quickly estimate by taking each driver's average finish. Then take 44 minus that number. So an average finish of 15 is like average points per race of 29. Multiply that number times 36 races, and you get your total.

Notice here, Jeff Gordon would have been the champion in these standings. Again we see Stewart and Johnson joining him as the best of this year's drivers.

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Drivers with Momentum Going into 2010 Sprint Cup Season

2009-12-03T10:55:00.000-05:00

Now that 2009 is over, it's time to start focusing on the upcoming 2010 season, less than three months away.

Let's take a look at who has been stepping up their game throughout 2009, and should be able to carry that momentum in next year.

First off, let's see which drivers were able to score more points in each third of the season. They are highlighted in blue here.

We see Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin, who both kept getting better as the season progressed.

We also see Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer from Richard Childress Racing. They ended the year on a positive note, and should be chase contenders in 2010.

Also notice Greg Biffle and AJ Allmendinger, who quietly kept scoring more points during the season. Allmendinger made some great gains in 2009, and might have a David Reutimann-esque "almost make the Chase" type year in 2010.

And at the bottom of the pack notice John Andretti who did his job in keeping that #34 car above the Top-35 line in owners points.

Now let's consider some of the different organizations.

Starting off with Hendrick, we see that their top 3 guys kept getting better, while Earnhardt kept getting worse. I wonder if this trend will continue, or if Earnhardt will be able to join the group as a meaningful competitor.

Next up is Stewart-Hass racing. They actually started off the year very well, but didn't do sell well during Chase-time. Was their great early start just a matter of luck, or can they repeat that again in 2010?

Or is their finish to the season more indicative of how they'll be in 2010. Notice they did just as well as the RCR guys in the final 12 races. Is Stewart-Hass more in line with RCR quality rather than Hendrick quality?

Speaking of Richard Childress Racing, they did a good job of getting their act together by the end of the year. Look for them to have good momentum going into 2010. Especially over the last two races, it seems their team has figured out how to compete again.

Now taking a look at Joe Gibbs Racing, Denny Hamlin stayed strong all year long, and people are now talking about him as a title contender for 2010. Notice the resurrection of Kyle Busch in the final portion of the year, outscoring many Chase drivers.

And finally, the big gains Joey Logano made during the season should keep continuing into 2010. Joe GIbbs Racing should be stronger next year than this year. peaking of Richard Childress Racing, they did a good job of getting their act together by

Our last team to consider is the about-to-be-shrunk Roush Fenway Racing. They never really made any strides all year, and their only bright spot was Carl Edwards decent run during the middle portion of the season. But remember that Edwards went from 9 wins to 0 in a year. Not a very good sign.

Matt Kenseth kept getting worse and worse as the year progressed, notice how he keeps falling on the rankings.

Roush hasn't shown any signs of improvement (like Gibbs and Childress) late this season, so their fortunes don't look so great headed into 2010.

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Earnhardt's Crew Chief Showing Even Worse Results

2009-11-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

We had previously taken a look at how Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had been performing in the first 12 and next 12 races of this 2009 season, comparing him with and without crew chief Tony Eury, Jr.

At the time, the results were inconclusive any improvement had been made, because his performance seemed to be the same in both situations.

Now we can consider the final 12 races of the year, and the results show a severe drop-off in Earnhardt's performance.

First off we consider the full performance of Earnhardt this season, color coding the three chunks of the season. You see Eury's time in orange, and the post-Eury experience in yellow and green. The green period is everything since our last update.

Remember the last two races in yellow were top 10 finishes, so there was momentum going into the final chunk of the year, but in fact it has been a struggle. Zero top 10s since. Most of the time he didn't even finish on the lead lap.

Also notice the summary breakdown of those three parts of the year. Reflects the big dropoff that's occurred.

Finally, look at the points accumulated in each third of the season. See how Earnhardt's ranking has really fallen, while his teammates finished 1-2-3 in points during the same 12 races. The fact that Earnhardt is right between Bobby Labonte and Scott Speed is very weak, considering the equipment he is in.

I don't know what the problem is with the 88 team, or how they are going to turn it around. The numbers are scary though.

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Congratulations to Paul Menard, the 2009 FLOPPER

2009-11-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

By starting Sunday's race in Homestead, Paul Menard took home the 2009 FLOPPER award.

He follows in the footsteps of legendary drivers like Richard Petty, Dale Jarrett, and Darrell Waltrip, and Harry Gant. Former winners of the award also include Kyle Petty, Sterling Marlin, Ken Schrader, Brett Bodine, and Bobby Hamilton The full list of past winners is here if you click on this link.

Of the 31 drivers who started every race, Menard took home a few titles:
1) The only driver without a top 10
2) The worst starting average (31)
3) The fewest Lead Lap Finishes (12)
4) Of course, scoring the fewest points (2979)

Interestingly enough, Menard was able to improve his finishing position by an average of 4 places over his starting position. That's the second best improvement of all the people on this list. Maybe they just need to get their equipment and qualifying setup better on Fridays.

Special kudos go to AJ Allmendinger, who managed to go the whole year without leading a single lap. Good job not pushing it.

We saw Michael Waltrip finish his fulltime career in 2009, and surprisingly was NEVER able to win a FLOPPER title during his career. He missed races in 3 of the last 4 years, so that's what held him back.

Now the question begins on who will win the FLOPPER in 2010. Anybody have any guesses? Maybe we can do a prize to the first person who comments with next year's correct FLOPPER.

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Menard Clinches FLOPPER Award Unless He Skips Homestead

2009-11-19T09:45:00.000-05:00

After Sunday's race in Phoenix, Paul Menard now takes a commanding 164 point lead in the FLOPPER race going into the final race of the year.

Some interesting notes:

1) Menard actually still has fewer points than David Stremme, who has missed the last two races of the year.

2) Menard is the only driver on this list with ZERO Top 10s all year long

3) The max difference between first and 43rd is 161 points. So if Menard starts the race at Homestead, he will automatically win the FLOPPER award.

4) AJ Allmendinger, despite all that "young potential" attention he's been getting this year, still has not led a single lap all season.

5) How do these prize winnings add up. Of this list of ten drivers, Menard has the 3rd most winnings. And Jamie McMurray is 9th on the list, even though McMurray just won at Talladega. I thought they gave a lot of money to winners of big races. How does any of this make sense?

6) It will be interesting to see if any of these guys accidentally run into Jimmie Johnson and wreck his title hopes at Homestead...And how many of these guys will be in FLOPPER contention next year, either by running better, or worse...by not having a full-time ride.

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97 percent chance Johnson takes title, 3 percent shot for Martin

2009-11-18T08:35:00.000-05:00

After Sunday's race at Phoenix, Jimmie Johnson's lead is now 108 points over Mark Martin.

We almost don't even need a table for this week, but let's go ahead and check it out anyway.

1) First off, everybody third place on down is eliminated.

2) Martin needs to outscore Johnson by 109 points or more in this last race in order to win the title.

Obviously that's a tough task to do, basically requiring that Johnson has some sort of problem.

Let's take a look at examples from earlier this season:
A) In the spring Richmond race, Martin finished 5th and Johnson finished 36th, for a difference of 100 points.

B) In the spring Michigan race, Johnson ran out of gas and finished 22nd, while Martin won. Martin outscored him by 83 points in that race.

C) Labor day weekend in Atlanta saw Martin finish 5th and Johnson 36th, for a difference in 95 points.

D) Obviously just last week at Texas, Martin finished 4th, Johnson was 38th, for a point difference of 111 points.

3) As we see, there have been cases this year where Mark has made huge points gaps on Johnson, and it's possible that will happen again. Not likely, but possible. That's why 3 percent is still something.

4) You never know...Let's go Mark!

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Is the Chase Having the Opposite Effect?

2009-11-16T06:34:00.000-05:00

We all know that the Chase was implemented to bring more drama into the championship story all the way to the end of the year.

But has that really been working?

Let's take a look at the last six years now of data:

What you see here is the difference in points between first and second in the standings with one race to go.

Notice in 2009, if we were using the old points system, there would only be an 8 point difference between first and second. With the Chase, that difference is now 100 points higher.

If you look at the trend, the difference in points under the Chase format has been going up steadily over time. From 18 points in 2004 to above 100 points in both 2008 and 2009. This trend to less competitive title races is most disturbing of all.

With the exception of blowouts by Tony Stewart in 2005 and Jeff Gordon in 2007, the Chase hasn't really done much to bring parity to the standings this late into the season.

This is something that top brass at NASCAR should be thinking about.

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Actually, Using Formula 1 Points System, Johnson Would Have Just Clinched

2009-11-15T20:47:00.004-05:00

Due to Jimmie Johnson's win on Sunday at Phoenix, if we were using the F1 points system in NASCAR, Johnson actually would have clinched the title.

You can click on the image here for a bigger version.

Johnson would have more than a 10 point lead now, and that would be enough to clinch it.

However, the race for second place would be super close. With 2 points separating 3 drivers, that would be quite a race to watch Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Mark Martin battle it out all race long in Homestead.

The interesting part about these standings is that it might help tone down some of the complaints that Johnson only won this year because of the points reset and the Chase tracks working in his favor. Because these standings go for the whole year, it's actually an impressive feat for Johnson.

Despite our earlier blogs showing how close the F1-system title race had been proceeding, Johnson's performance in the last two months have really put him out of reach of everybody else. Four of his seven wins this season have come in the Chase. The ironic part about is that this F1 system was much closer than the real Chase standings were...until this week when Johnson got this clinch.

I'm actually personally not a Johnson fan, and actually am still hoping Mark Martin will win the title, but as far as this format goes, Johnson is the winner. Good job.

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Paul Menard Could Clinch the FLOPPER Title at Phoenix

2009-11-13T09:07:00.000-05:00

After Sunday's race in Texas, we are starting to see a very clear FLOPPER title picture wrap up.

1) If Paul Menard leaves Phoenix more than 161 points behind the next racer, Menard will clinch the award.

2) David Stremme lost his ride early this year, in place of Brad Keselowski, so he's not in the running for the title anymore this year. Remember you need to complete every single race to be in contention.

3) Menard's best bet is to sit out one of the next two races, and let the drivers between 27-30 compete for the award.

4) Sam Hornish gets special thanks for helping making this Chase interesting once again.

5) The weird thing is that in 2008, Juan Montoya and Paul Menard finished 25th and 26th in the standings. Only 1 spot apart. This year they are 26 spots apart. Imagine if we had seen Menard make the Chase this year instead of Montoya. Wouldn't that have been strange? Somehow I don't think we'll see Menard make the chase next year either. I don't even need a probability table for that.

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Jimmie Johnson 82 Percent, Mark Martin 12 Percent: Chase Chances for Every Driver

2009-11-12T09:08:00.000-05:00

After Sunday's huge shakeup in Texas, the Chase picture is looking a lot more competitive with just two races to go.

1) Anytime you are trying to pass BOTH David Reutimann and Sam Hornish on the outside of the same turn of the same lap on lap three of any race is a boneheaded move. When you have a big points leads in the 34th race of the year, and are that close to a historic fourth consecutive title, that move is even more boneheaded. And to immediately blame Hornish at the end of the race for your own mistake just shows what an ass you really are. Good job Jimmie Johnson for making this Chase interesting.

2) Mark Martin, my own personal favorite in this race, saw his chances go way up after beating Johnson by 34 positions. If you combine Talladega and Texas, Martin has gained 45 points on Johnson in those two races. Only 73 points left to go. He can still pull it out, and there's life in him now.

3) By gaining into Johnson's lead, Jeff Gordon also gained a small chance of being the title winner. But 13th place isn't going to get the job done, especially when you started on the pole.

4) Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart would have stayed at 0 percent the rest of the season had the races played out like we'd seen so far this year. But Jimmie Johnson scored his *worst* finish of the entire year, which shifted our numbers a little bit. That helped bring Busch and Stewart (slightly) into the title picture.

5) We add three more drivers to the official "out" section at the bottom in pink. Hamlin was already eliminated last week, so even his second place wasn't good enough to do anything for him.

6) The most points Martin can score is 6614, meaning Johnson needs 317 points in the next to races to clinch. That's an average of 4th place in both races. All of a sudden that's not a very simple task. He needs two ninth places to stay ahead of Jeff Gordon.

7) Interesting tidbit: in the last two races combined, the Chase driver who has scored the most points is......Greg Biffle, with a 4th and 8th place earning him 302 points total.

8) Looking forward to Phoenix, where in April this year, Martin won and outscored Johnson by 30 points. A repeat of that this weekend would really shift the picture.

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A Very Close Title Race Using F1 points system

2009-11-09T21:19:00.000-05:00

I am getting a lot of demand for this table, so I will update it again this week. This is what the NASCAR points standings would look like if we used the Formula 1 points system.

Click on the image for a bigger and clearer version.

1) Notice we have a very close title chase at the top, among Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Mark Martin. Any one of them has a reasonable chance of winning the title.

2) Denny Hamlin would have just been eliminated, but he could still finish in second place this season.

3) Remember these are standings that go back all year long, so there is no need for a Chase reset. Doesn't this system seem to make more sense from a logical point of view, from anybody who has watched all the races this year?

4) What do people think about this? Do readers out there think this system is better, or do they like the current system instead?

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With different points system, we'd still have a close title race right now

2009-11-06T08:55:00.000-05:00

After Jimmie Johnson's lucky sixth place finish at Talladega, he now has a lead that is basically insurmountable.

First notice the F1 points system. If we used that in NASCAR, we'd have a very close championship race still. Anybody within 30 points of the leader (including Denny Hamlin) would have a shot at the title.

The ironic part about the Chase is that again this year it has a bigger difference in points than if we had just left the original points alone. In the old format, the top three drivers would be 79 points apart. Johnson and Tony Stewart would only be 7 points apart.

Obviously in the chase format the top 2 drivers are nearly 200 points apart. Much further away than without the chase format.

We've seen the same thing in years before. Very ironic. Or just more evidence we need a better points system.

Notice in that link, each year the gap between first and second keeps getting wider and wider going into the last race of the year. We'll probably see that trend continue again this year. The chases have become less competitive every single year. Is it time for a new tweak?

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Paul Menard running away with FLOPPER award

2009-11-05T10:09:00.001-05:00

After Sunday's very early wreck at Talladega, Paul Menard is running away with this year's FLOPPER award. His lead rivals Jimmie Johnson's points lead at the top of the standings.

Big congratulations to former FLOPPER contender, Jamie McMurray, who won the race this weekend. He had been in the charts consistently through two races ago. After four straight finishes 28th or worse, McMurray got 6th at Martinsville and followed that up with his win at Talladega. Good job breaking out of the FLOPPER table this year. Let's see if you can stay off the table the rest of 2009.

McMurray now has 2 of his 3 career wins at Daytona and Talladega. Looks like a Michael Waltrip type of resume.

Bobby Labonte's 10th place finish moved him far away from the FLOPPER lead.

Unless Menard can come through with three straight top 10s to end the season, I think he has this title wrapped up. He might have this clinched before we even reach Homestead. Another way to have an early celebration at Ford Championship Weekend.

Of course, David Stremme has lost his ride now for the rest of the season, taking out another one of our FLOPPER contenders.

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Martin and Gordon have a narrow shot of beating Johnson

2009-11-04T08:42:00.001-05:00

After Sunday's bizarre Talladega finish, Jimmie Johnson found yet another way to beat the rest of his competition.

As much as I hate to say it, Johnson is going to coast to the title unless he has three bad results in a row.

First off, we can "officially" eliminate Denny Hamlin and Brian Vickers from the title. Anybody more than 483 points behind can't catch up to Johnson.

After next week's race, anybody 322 points back or more will be eliminated "officially". Of course we know we don't have to wait that long for the official elimination, since our advanced math already tells us only two guys have a chance at catching Johnson, and that chance is really small. Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin have a combined 1.4 percent of beating Johnson.

How could Johnson lose the title? For example, take a look at the results of three races earlier this year: Richmond (May), Michigan (June), and Atlanta (September). In those races, Johnson finished 36th, 22nd, and 36th. Jeff Gordon finished 8th, 2nd, and 8th. Mark Martin finished 5th, 1st, and 5th.

If the next three races have similar results to those three above, then Johnson would lose to Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon. In that case, Martin would win with 6564, Gordon second at 6520, and Johnson third at 6470.

Obviously this is not a likely scenario, cherry-picking three of Johnson's worst races and hoping that pattern repeats itself consecutively. This shows that it's not likely but still possible. It's Johnson's title to lose at this point.

Consider another example:
Martin has 6064 points right now. The maximum he can earn from now till the end of the season is 195 times 3, or 585 points. That would leave him with 6649 points.

Johnson has 6248 already, so needs another 401 points to beat Martin's maximum. That's an average of 134 points per race over the final three.

10th place is awarded 134 points, so if Johnson just rides around and gets 10th place each week, there will be no way he loses the title.

I wonder if he'll start taking it easy now.

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Paul Menard extends his FLOPPER Lead

2009-10-31T08:05:00.000-04:00

After Sunday's Race in Martinsville, Paul Menard extends his FLOPPER lead.

Though right behind him is a cluster of four drivers that are fighting to get back to Menard.

As I mentioned last week, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has cracked the top 10 in the FLOPPER standings. It definitely seems that his crew chief switch hasn't helped his bad luck.

As I promised last week, let's consider how much money each driver has made, and how much that actually is on a per lap and per mile basis.

Martin Truex makes $463 per lap, the most of everybody here. The lowest is Elliott Sadler at $371.12, just squeaking below David Ragan by nine cents per lap.

Per mile David Ragan is the lowest at $282. And Reed Sorenson makes the most at $349 per mile.

I can't tell if a high dollar number here is good or bad. If you are running a lot of laps, that will bring your average down.

For comparison, Jimmie Johnson has made $518 per mile this year, more than any of the guys in our table above. But Kurt Busch, another Chase contender, has made $330 per mile (less than Reed Sorenson for example).

But all of that that pales in comparison to the whopping $1416 per mile Dave Blaney has accumulated this season. Way to stay efficient Dave. Good job.

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Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon Would Lead F1 Points Standings in NASCAR

2009-10-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

Following up on our previous post considering what the NASCAR standings would look like if they used a Formula 1 point system, we have a very interesting table:

You can click on the image for a larger version of the table.

What I find fascinating here is seeing Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon tied atop these standings. This is certainly much closer than the current Sprint Cup standings. And this point system doesn't need a "chase reset" to bring everybody back together.

The last time we looked, Tony Stewart and Mark Martin were the top two in this system, but after a string of good runs recently, Johnson and Gordon have taken over the top stop. Previously, Johnson was in 4th place, 10 points behind Stewart. Now he is 4 points ahead of Stewart, due to his current hot streak.

In this system, anybody within 40 points of the leader is within reach of the title. If they score 4 straight wins, they'll get 40 points. So the entire top five, including Denny Hamlin, would still have a shot at the title.

The good thing about this system is it doesn't punish you that much for a bad race. Getting 43rd is no different than getting 23rd. It allows you a chance throughout the season as long as you have the ability to run up front.

I think this system would result in more competitive driving up front, which would give the fans the type of aggressive and strong racing they really want to see. Everybody needs to race to the front.

Right now, the only way Johnson isn't going to win the title (in real points) is if he wrecks. There really isn't any way to catch up to him as long as he keeps getting top 10s.

In the F1 system, top 10s don't really get it done. Johnson couldn't just "take it easy" the rest of the year and coast to a victory. In fact, he'd only be tied right now, so he'd still have no choice but to race hard.

I know with a 43-driver field, having points go to the top 8 might be a bit too extreme. But if we only gave points to the top 15 drivers? That might be a fair compromise. Anything 16th or worse is worth 1 point, so at least you get credit for qualifying and competing. Maybe even say DNFs get 0 points, so there is some encouragement to stay out there and race, which might be a compromise with NASCAR's current system of being so focused on "consistency" rather than racing up front.

And the good news would be you wouldn't need a Chase to reset the points just to bring everybody back together again.

The concept of the Chase to reset all the points together is the same as having a "phantom debris caution" late in a race to bring all the drivers back together again to make it a close race again. But with a better points system, we wouldn't need that.

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Jimmie Johnson has 89 Percent Chance of Winning the Championship

2009-10-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

After Sunday's race in Martinsville, we have a new updated championship probability table.

1) With the exception of already-eliminated Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson's second place finish gained him points on all his Chase competitors.

2) There really isn't much to say here, with Johnson pulling off finishes like this, it's really going to take a wreck for him to lose this title. And that assumes his competitors are able to finish cleanly at the same time.

3) Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon are really the only two guys with a reasonable shot of trying to catch Johnson.

4) I know some people like to wait for drivers to be "officially mathematically eliminated", so with 4 races to go, any driver more than 644 points will be out. Technically all 12 drivers are within that number. After next week, all drivers 483 points behind will be officially knocked out.

5) But we don't need to wait till next week, since a full half of the field has no chance of winning the championship anyway. And if you consider Juan Montoya and Kurt Busch as practically having no chance too, that leaves 8 guys on the outs.

6) I don't think having a blowout like this was the intention of creating the chase. The ironic part is that if there were no chase system right now, the top 3 drivers would be separated by only 122 points. In fact the chase system has *widened* that number, making the championship less competitive than it otherwise would have been. Click here to see I made this point last year as well.

7) Not much else to say this week other than "will Johnson wreck?"

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Bobby Labonte Closing in on Paul Menard's FLOPPER Lead

2009-10-24T10:50:00.000-04:00

Bobby Labonte's 31st place finish at Charlotte brought him a bit closer to the FLOPPER lead.

Not that far back are three more drivers within striking distance. And in the next group back in yellow, we find Sam Hornish, who single-handedly spun himself out twice to bring out the first two cautions of the race. Nice job.

I thought it would be interesting this week to include the prize winnings of each driver in this grouping, and compare how it's totally unrelated to their place in the standings.

Just to be sure, the total combined winnings for these ten drivers is nearly 36 million dollars this year.

Would you have guessed that Reed Sorenson has made nearly a million dollars more than David Ragan this year? That's 26 percent more than Ragan over the course of the season, for basically the same performance.

Jamie McMurray's prize winnings are the lowest in this group. But he's still averaging more than $101,000 per race. Martin Truex, the highest on this list, is averaging over $131,000 per race. Next week we'll consider how much money they make per lap and per mile.

One last point: Dale Earnhardt Jr is only 1 point ahead of Martin Truex in the standings, and could very possibly find himself on this table next week.

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Jimmie Johnson 73 Percent, Mark Martin 10 Percent: Chase Winning Percentages for Every Driver

2009-10-21T09:11:00.000-04:00

After Saturday Night's win in Charlotte, Jimmie Johnson now takes a commanding lead in his quest to win a fourth straight title.

1) Johnson has scored 3 wins in the last four races. And in each of those wins, he has also scored the bonus points for leading the most laps.

2) The top four drivers, all in Hendrick-powered equipment, now have over a 99 percent chance of winning the championship. That's up from last week's 94 percent.

3) Mark Martin and Tony Stewart, by finishing outside the top 10, each lost 12 percent from their title chances.

4) Kurt Busch's crew chief Pat Tryson might leave the team early if they are out of the title hunt. I wonder if having less than a one percent chance counts as being out.

5) We now have 4 drivers with 0 chance of winning the title. Bad nights from Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin knocked them out. Good luck next year.

6) The previous line is being generous, because we technically haven't eliminated Juan Montoya, Ryan Newman, and Greg Biffle. But their combined chance of winning is about one in a thousand. Most likely all three of them will be eliminated after the next race at Martinsville.

7) The question now is can Martin, Stewart, or Jeff Gordon come back to topple Jimmie Johnson? A lot of racing left to go, and freak accidents happen at Martinsville and Talladega, so maybe they can make up lost ground if Johnson suffers some bad luck.

8) Remember back to the summer, with 6 races to go before the Chase started, Brian Vickers only had a six percent chance of making it in. But he rolled off a great stretch of performance and did qualify. That means the three guys behind Johnson still have a shot of getting it done.

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Paul Menard holding onto FLOPPER lead

2009-10-16T09:43:00.001-04:00

With only six races to go, we don't see much change in the FLOPPER standings.

1) Paul Menard still holds a decent lead, with 4 guys back between 85 and 144 points back.

2) There is still a chance for one of them to make a late move to the top of these standings. 6 races is a lot of time to make something happen.

3) I'm surprised to see two Roush cars down here (Jamie McMurray and David Ragan). A big fall from 2005 when all five of their cars made the Chase.

4) Not surprising, however, is finding three cars from Richard Petty Motorsports in this group. It makes you wonder how well Kasey Kahne would perform if he didn't have teammates performing so poorly.

5) Today I highlight a very surprising item, the fact that Paul Menard has completed more laps this season than anybody else on this list. He's done a good job of staying on the track all year. Would you have guessed this? Menard's 8371 laps completed ranks him 11th among all drivers this season in laps completed, ahead of five chase drivers. Very impressive.

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Jimmie Johnson 42 Percent, Mark Martin 22 Percent, Chase Winning Percentages for Every Driver

2009-10-15T09:03:00.001-04:00

After Sunday's race in Fontana, California, we now see a very big shakeup in the percentage standings.

1) Jimmie Johnson is the big winner in every department. He wins the race, takes the points lead, and gains 18 percentage points here, moving from 24 percent to 42 percent. His chance of winning the title is almost double the next best competitor.

2) Fortunately for Mark Martin, his fourth place finish kept him in striking distance of the points lead, and his 22 percent title chances are the same as last week. He hasn't really lost any ground versus the competition as a whole.

3) Tony Stewart, despite getting fifth place, took a bigger hit, losing six percentage points.

4) The biggest loser of the group was Denny Hamlin, who went from a six percent chance to virtually zero.

5) Six drivers have been virtually eliminated after Fontana. That's a big shakeup.

6) The top four Hendrick-powered cars now have a combined 94 percent chance of winning the title.

7) Despite the TV announcers calling this one of the closest Chases ever, I see the data showing a big divide between who has a shot and who does not.

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Stewart, Johnson, Martin have equal Championship Winning Probabilities

2009-10-08T08:36:00.001-04:00

Three races down, seven to go. The season is quickly winding up as the Chase rolls on.

After Sunday's race in Kansas, we now have a very different title winning probability table.

1) Obviously the big winner was Tony Stewart, as he halved the points gap to Mark Martin, and in doing so doubled his percentage chances of winning the title. What was once a two-man race between Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin is now a three-man race with the inclusion of Stewart. You can also throw Jeff Gordon in there, who still has a great shot of winning the title, despite his lower standing in the points.

2) Is it really a coincidence that three of the greatest drivers of this generation have won the three Chase races this season? This part of the year is when the best rise to the top, and we are seeing that again. And no surprise to see Gordon right there lurking behind the three race winners.

3) Juan Montoya is the only driver with top fives in each of the three Chase races. However, he only had 2 top fives in the first 26 races, so it's unclear how hot he can stay in the final 7. If he does keep getting top fives, obviously his percentage chances will keep growing on this table.

4) Martin and Johnson's top 10 runs didn't do much to help or hurt their causes, just good runs to keep them in contention as before.

5) We now add Brian Vickers to our list of "his chance is so low we need to go past the decimal point to show it." Congrats on showing everybody your place in the Chase was indeed a fluke.

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Ragan, Labonte, Stremme all within range of FLOPPER lead

2009-10-07T14:46:00.001-04:00

After Sunday's race in Kansas, we see one of our tightest races in the FLOPPER standings in a while.

1) David Ragan, Bobby Labonte, and David Stremme are virtually tied, all about 80 points ahead of Paul Menard for the title.

2) I also included this week a list of each person's laps led on the seasons. Interesting to see the range of those numbers from 0 to 179. Definitely some surprises in there.

3) Funny to think that AJ Allmendinger is the only guy on this list who has 0 laps led all year. Would you have guessed that? His 0 laps led are still good enough to stay ahead of Martin Truex Jr, who has led a respectable 179 laps this season.

4) Truex's 179 laps led is actually more than (would you have guessed this): Carl Edwards, Brian Vickers, Dale Earnhart Jr, David Reutimann, and is just 9 laps less than all four Richard Childress cars combined. I'm serious. Maybe he does have some potential to bounce back next year, and his move to Michael Waltrip Racing will be a good one.

5) If Bobby Labonte keeps getting last place finishes like he did at Kansas, he'll quickly find himself at the top of this table.

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Formula 1 Points System in NASCAR: Tony Stewart would lead Mark Martin by 2 points

2009-10-02T11:48:00.002-04:00

Could we simply replace the entire points system (and the Chase too) by simply instituting the F1 points system in NASCAR

Right now the current points system is setup to punish drivers for bad finishes. It is not setup to reward drivers for good finishes. That is the fundamental problem here.

Click on the table for a larger version. This is updated through the Dover race.

It also has such a wide disparity that somebody like Tony Stewart can build up a huge lead on the rest of the field. And the only way to catch up to him is to hope he crashes out, rather than trying to hope your own driver runs well enough to beat him.

The F1 system is based on rewarding good finishes. Only score the Top 8, and forget about the rest.

I know that NASCAR has 43-car fields, so only scoring the Top 8 is a bit extreme. But it's an interesting example to use here.

We find that Mark Martin would be in the thick of the title race, without needing any Chase-reset. It would show Kyle Busch up there as well. And we'd see Chase drivers like Greg Biffle and Brian Vickers outside the top 12 on these standings.

Here's the point. If Martin and Stewart are basically tied here, based on their top-8 finishes, but the NASCAR system has them over 400 points apart (not Chase Adjusted), then doesn't that just show that the current NASCAR system is just more interested in punish bad finishes rather than rewarding good ones?

Do we really want our champion to be the guy who was "least bad on his bad days" or the guy who was "the absolute best on his good days"?

No chase-format or two extra drivers or bonus points for wins is going to fix any of that. As long as the current system of awarding positions 1-43 points stays the same, people will still keep complaining that the champion isn't a true reflection for the best car. I'm not saying we should use the F1 system, I'm just saying we should use it as a comparison to what we have, and see which one "makes more sense" from a normal person's point of view.

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Guys looking for rides: Updated FLOPPER standings

2009-10-01T09:48:00.005-04:00

After Dover's race, we take a look at an expanded version of the FLOPPER standings.

1) First off, congratulations to Paul Menard for his strong lead-lap finish in 19th place, really took a big chunk out of his previous 100 point lead in these standings. He finished ahead of Dale Earnhardt, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, and David Reutimann.

2) What's most surprising to me on this list is the fact that Sam Hornish, Jr. has SEVEN top 10 finishes this year. I honestly thought that was a typo, so I had to go back and look through his results this year. Yup it's true, he really does have seven top 10s. Would you have guessed that correctly? But he's still down here so low because of his 5 DNFs and the fact that only 11 times out of 28 has he finished on the lead lap. His finishes are either very good or very bad.

3) I am still shocked at how poorly David Ragan is doing this year. For a guy who was 13th in the standings last year, and was racing even hotter at the end of the year, I don't know how they've been so far off the entire season. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I know Roush is struggling generally this season, but I don't get why Ragan has dropped this much. Maybe 2008 was the fluke and this is his normal capability?

4) Good job to Reed Sorenson, who has zero DNFs this year, while everybody else around him in the standings (26th - 31st) has four or five of them. Nice job staying on track. Maybe use this stat to convince sponsors and owners to give you a ride.

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Jimmie Johnson 29 Percent, Mark Martin 23 Percent: Chase Winning Percentages for Every Driver

2009-09-30T09:29:00.002-04:00

After Dover's race this past Sunday, we now have only eight more races to go in the 2009 season.

Time for another updated probability table. Some interesting notes:

1) The big winner this week was Jimmie Johnson, who nearly doubled his chance of winning the chase.

2) Mark Martin's second place finish kept him in second place on this table, but his percentage moved up a good chunk from 18 to 23.

3) Tony Stewart's ninth place finish dropped him from first to third here, down to 15 percent, only half of Johnson's title chances. The key lesson here is that top fives and wins will be necessary to win this year's chase, not just top 10s. Notice that Stewart is now closer in points to 12th place Kasey Kahne than he is to points leader Mark Martin.

4) The big loser was Denny Hamlin, who finished 2 laps down in 22nd. That's *never* going to get the job done.

5) Carl Edwards joins Kasey Kahne in the dreaded "less than one percent so I had to add another decimal place" category.

6) Johnson and Martin combine for 52 percent of the championship possibilities. If you include Stewart and Jeff Gordon, that's a 79 percent chance of the title going to somebody in the Hendrick stable.

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LONG VERSION: Introducing the Watermill Score: The new breathtakingly simple way to estimate NASCAR points system.

2009-09-28T19:14:00.002-04:00

(Note: this is the longer version of what I wrote a month ago.)

Introducing the Watermill Score: The new breathtakingly simple way to estimate NASCAR points system. Why it’s important, and how you can use it to affect race strategy.

I. Introducing the Watermill Score

There is a startlingly basic relationship that almost fully defines the traditional NASCAR points system as it was created by Bob Latford a generation ago.

The current Latford system gives points all the way from first to last, and bonus points for leading laps. You can score anywhere between 34 and 195 points in a single race.

But take a look at this super simple revelation: We can simplify the points system to just this: Add up for each driver just four data points:

Wins + Top 10s + Lead Lap Finishes + Races at the Finish

The total of just these four numbers gets you to basically the same rankings as the current Latford system. We have W+T+L+R. For purposes of this article, and with currently no other name I can think of, I will refer to this number as a Watermill Score. Also notice the letters W, T, L, and R all get used up in there.

II. Examples of the Watermill Score in use

Let’s briefly review two examples:

First consider the driver with the highest Watermill Score in each season this decade. Notice that in every case but one, the driver with the highest Watermill Score also scored the most NASCAR points that season. 2002 is the only exception because of a rare closeness in the competition, where seven drivers were within 226 points of the champion that year.

Notice I am *not* resetting the points for the Chase. I want to look purely at how many total points drivers accumulated during the year. The Chase reset doesn’t allow for a fair comparison.

Now let’s look at our second example, the current 2009 standings. The drivers are sorted by their NASCAR points ranking. But notice that the Watermill Score is broken up into color coded groups by score. In almost every case, the groups are in distinct blocks separating the various drivers. As the Watermill Score goes down, so do the total points for each driver.

With the exception of Mark Martin’s 56 score in the middle of the blue section, notice that each group of scores goes along perfectly with the overall points standings. If Martin had just 26 more points in the standings to go ahead of Newman, then this entire lineup would be 100% in unbroken blocks. Despite this one small difference, you can visually see very easily how the Watermill Score is a very good estimator for the overall points system.

What’s most important is that the Watermill Score has is just as accurate at the top of the points system as at the bottom. Some data (like lead lap numbers) may only be relevant to the Top 10 in points, since most people at the bottom of the standings do not have a significant number of laps led. But this score is consistently accurate throughout the standings. That’s what makes it so valuable.

III. Watermill Score Compares the Best Among Different Estimators

I attempted a modified version of the Watermill Score, using Top 5s instead of Top 10s. It turns out this metric is very good as well, but the original version is slightly more predictive. The table below shows the results, along with the value of some of the most basic metrics commonly cited by industry professionals today:

These correlations were done each year using the Top 30 in the driver points standings. (I only used 30 to remove affect of part-time teams, mid-season driver switches, teams who don’t qualify for every race, etc.)

Some thoughts about the data:

1. The correlation of the Watermill Score is high, repeatable, and consistent:

The Watermill Score is more correlated to the points standings than every other metric listed.
Notice the minimum score in blue at the bottom, .977, is better than the average score of any other metric, including Average Finish.
Average Finish can be deceptively inaccurate in some years (like last year with a .90 correlation and other years with .92 and .94).
The Watermill Score is very consistent, and always correlates between .977 and .988 every year this decade.

2. The number of wins by itself is not a great measure of success. In fact wins is a worse predictor than average starting spot.

3. Notice in every single season, Top 10s are a much better predictor of success than Top 5s.

4. Racing at the Finish (inverse of DNF) on its own is not a very important statistic, but when combined with the other data, it becomes very important as a needed measure of consistency.

In conclusion, the data shows us that the Watermill Score is in fact a truly helpful statistic, and it is the best estimator the points standings than any other dataset.

IV. How can the Watermill Score be used to affect race strategy?

Now that we’ve seen the value of the Watermill Score, we can see that the way to maximize your points during the season is to simply focus on four tasks:

Finishing races
Finishing on the lead lap
Getting Top 10s
Winning

If you win a race you’ve accomplished all four tasks, earning a Watermill Score of 4 in that race. If you crash out of a race, you accomplish none of these tasks, earning 0 watermills. A lead-lap top 10 earns you 3 watermills.

Notice that the points are split between accomplishing basic tasks (finishing and on the lead lap) while the other half is focused on up-front results (top 10s and wins). This makes a lot of sense to anybody who has been watching NASCAR for years: the Latford system punishes you for bad results just as much as it rewards you for good ones.

Notice that Tony Stewart has 66 watermills this year, an average of 2.75 per race. Matt Kenseth, in the final chase spot, has 53 watermills, an average of 2.21 per race this season. In the entire decade, nobody has ever averaged 3 watermills throughout a season.

Think about what this means for crew chiefs deciding race strategy. If you can walk away from each race with your 3 watermills by finishing in the top 10, do you really want to risk that going for the win, when the possible bad outcome if you finish off the lead lap?

Example 1: Fuel mileage game
You can fill up right now on caution and guarantee yourself a Top 10 finish. The other option is to stay out and hope your fuel will make it to the end. Reward is a win, risk is you run out of gas and finish off the lead lap.

A top 10 guarantees 3 watermills.

A win gets you 4 watermills. Finishing off the lead lap gets you 1.

So if you had a 50/50 shot of making it, the risk-weighted watermill score is .5*4 + .5*1 = 2.5 watermills, which is *LESS* than the guaranteed top 10.
In fact, you’d need at least an 67 percent chance of making it to get your risk-weighted watermill score back up to 3 points, the same as you’re guaranteed top 10. Then you’d have .666*4+.333*1 = 3.0, the same as the guaranteed top 10.

This math suggests that in most cases, unless you are almost absolutely sure you can make it all the way, you are better off not risking a top 10 to go for the win.

However, if you were running further in the pack, and filling up the tank would guarantee you a lead lap finish OUTSIDE the top 10, then your math is very different. Filling up the tank guarantees you 2 watermills, but stretching fuel means you might win (4 watermills) or finish off the lead lap (1 watermill). Now the math is much easier, because you are risking less. All you need is better than a 33 percent chance of being able to stretch fuel for the risk to be worth it.

By just focusing on whether you’ll win, get a top 10, and finish on the lead lap, a crew chief can more quickly and easily come up with the best risk/reward strategy, without having to worry about the more complicated points scheme. As we’ve shown, if you can win the competition of Watermill scores, you will also win the championship.

Example 2: potential flat tire?

Many times we’ve heard a driver complaining that he might have a flat tire. Or we’ve seen instances where there is a fender rubbing the tire, and nobody is sure whether that will cut it down flat. Sometimes it’s not obvious if the tire is actually going down, so what’s a crew chief to do?

Go back to the watermill score. 1 watermill for finishing a race, 1 watermill for staying on the lead lap. Even on bad days, if you can just get out with 2 watermills, that’s not too bad. As we’ve seen, the best seasons average less than 3 watermills per race. So a few 2s won’t kill you, but a few zeros will.

If you pit on green, you’ll probably lose a lap and potentially never recover. If you stay out, and the tire does go bust, you’ll probably crash the car in the wall and won’t finish the race. How do you approach it?

• If you are already off the lead lap, go ahead and come in to fix the tire. At this point your best bet is to get 1 watermill for finishing the race, so you lose nothing extra by falling back another lap or two. Come in and pit, get the new tires.

• If you are on the lead lap, outside the top 10, you have 2 watermills right now. Lose a lap to pit and you have 1 watermill. Stay out and crash and you get 0 watermills. Stay out and nothing happens, you keep your 2 watermills (with some potential upside of reaching the top 10). The math here suggests you only pit if you think there’s more than a 50 percent chance of the tire actually being flat. If you are just guessing, and you think it’s less than a 50 percent chance of being a flat, stay out.

• If you are on the lead lap, in the top 10, you’d now have 3 watermills if the race ended now. Again your options are to crash out, lose laps by pitting, or stay in the top 10 by staying out. In this case you only pit if you are more than 66% sure that it’s a flat. Even a 50/50 guess is worth staying out, because your risk weighted watermill score in that case is .5*3 + .5*1 = 1.5.

• Similarly, if you are leading the race, then you only pit if you are more than 75% sure you have a flat. Since it’s such a big loss to lose those laps, you might as well take the chance on getting your full 4 watermills, stay out and see what happens.

Again, without thinking about the complicated points system, crew chiefs can very quickly think about risk/reward and whether it’s worth pitting now. This depends on where you are running on the track. Be smart about accumulating watermills and you will do well in the points standings.

Example 3: Four tires, two tires, or no tires?

If you are in the top 10 right now, going into the last stop of the race, and fuel mileage isn’t a concern, what is your tire strategy?

If you finish in the top 10, you get 3 watermills. If you take 4 tires, you can guarantee yourself a top 10.

If you take no tires, let’s say that gives you a 20 percent chance of winning (4 watermills), 50 percent chance of finishing in the top 10 (3 watermills), and 30 percent chance of finishing below the top 10 (watermills). The weighted average of all this is .2*4+.5*3+.3*2 = 2.9, or worse than the guaranteed 3.0 you could have had by taking four tires. As long as the chance of falling outside the top 10 is higher than your chance of winning, then it’s a bad strategy. You need your chance of winning to be higher than your chance of falling outside the top 10 for this to be a good idea.

Let’s say by taking two tires you change your chances to 30 percent winning, 60 percent staying in the top 10, and 10 percent falling out the top 10. In this case it makes sense to go with the two tire strategy, since the risk-weighted watermill average here is .30*4+.60*3+.10*2 = 3.2, better than the 3.0 you’d get for taking four tires.

Again, these examples do not focus on what specific place you are in or what your competitors in the standings are doing. I also do not give you the specific percentages for what different gambles are worth. That’s where a good crew chief comes in, using his smarts and experience. What I am suggesting is a simple way to take those percentages, risk-weight them to the watermill score, and be able to more simply and quickly come up with appropriate race-time strategy. Because the overall points system is too complicated to quickly figure out, by following this simpler program, and thinking about the four simple tasks (winning, top 10s, lead lap finishes, finishing the race), this concept can help teams look past all the endless combinations of results and focus only on these four tasks that matter, and that can help them win a championship.

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Paul Menard Leads FLOPPER Standings by 100 Points

2009-09-25T19:07:00.000-04:00

New Hampshire provided Paul Menard with a strong 34th place finish, 13 laps off the lead.

He now has a triple digit lead in the FLOPPER standings. With only 9 races to go, this might be too much of a lead for anybody else to overcome.

How about the effort by Bobby Labonte to get last minute funding, and drive his #71 TRG car to a lead lap finish in 22nd place. He even led a lap, for a total of 102 points on Sunday.

If Labonte does end up falling short of funding in his upcoming TRG races, he might find himself in a start-and-park situation, which could very quickly bring him up to the top of these standings.

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Tony Stewart 21 Percent, Mark Martin 18 Percent: Chase Winning Probabilities for Every Driver

2009-09-23T05:04:00.000-04:00

Coming off Mark Martin's dramatic win at New Hampshire this Sunday, we have a brand new updated table of championship probabilities.

What do we see here:

1) Martin is now only 3 percent behind Tony Stewart, after Stewart came home 14th. This is particularly encouraging for Martin, considering he had never won at Loudon before, and disliked the track so much he left it off his schedule the last two years.

2) Juan Montoya's strong run moved him higher up in the points standings, but his title percentage still stays very low. He'll need a lot more top 5s to make a dent in these percentages. It's still possible though, if he can successfully upgrade his early season "points racing" strategy.

3) The top 5 guys on this table (Stewart, Martin, Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson) have a combined 83 percent chance of winning the title. Look at these 5 for your true contenders.

4) The midpack guys in yellow (Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Brian Vickers, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards) did not races to meaningfully change their situations. Their percentages stayed practically the same.

5) Kasey Kahne was never really a threat to win the title (3 percent last week), so his engine failure only set him back 2.5 percentage points (to 0.5 percent).

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Counting Cards - The NASCAR Points Way

2009-09-20T11:00:00.000-04:00

I showed in a previous article how we can simplify the NASCAR points system to just four basic metrics. I also suggested how this can allow for smarter gambles by crew chiefs.

Another way to think about this concept is the analogy of counting cards in blackjack. For a refresher go here.

The point in blackjack is that you have 52 cards in a deck, but only certain cards are worth points. In a simple counting scheme, many cards are worth 0 points, but some are worth positive 1 or negative 1. These gamblers keep track of the cards with point values, and based on the count, they use different tactics.

We can see the same analogy here in NASCAR. If you take that same card-counting approach, instead of keeping track of all 43 positions, all you need to do is keep track of the four important metrics:

1 point for finishing the race
1 point for finishing on the lead lap
1 point for a Top 10
1 point for a Win.

Every other place in the final results is worth 0.

Remember that over the past decade this Watermill points ranking has a .98 correlation with the real NASCAR points ranking. It's equally valuable whether you are fighting for 1st in points or 35th in points.

If you can just maximize your Watermill score, you're also maximizing your real place in the standings.

Crew chiefs and teams just need to "count" these four points, ignore everything else, and let the rest of math's magic work in their favor. They can quickly use this Watermill count to decide whether or not it's risking a fuel mileage gamble, how much they should gamble on over-adjusting a mediocre car, decide if it's worth pitting for a tire they aren't sure is going down, etc. They can stop focusing on the complicated points system of 43 places, and instead just focus on these four factors. Keep track of the count and they'll be all set.

They don't have to pay attention to all 43 places anymore (just like blackjack players don't have to pay attention to all 52 cards). Just focus on counting the 4 points that matter.

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Paul Menard Takes over FLOPPER Lead as Robby Gordon Disqualified

2009-09-19T11:00:00.003-04:00

Robby Gordon is no longer eligible to defend his FLOPPER award, as he did not compete in Saturday night's race at Richmond. Instead, he decided to run an off-road race in Nevada.

Is it possible that Gordon made this decision simply because he did not want to repeat as the FLOPPER? Was he made aware of his looming repeat championship in the last few weeks, causing him to conveniently skip this race? I'll guess we'll never know...

Nevertheless, we now celebrate the great PAUL MENARD as the new FLOPPER leader.

With his strong lap-down finish in 28th place, Menard now takes a commanding 82 point lead going into New Hampshire.

It is curious to notice the job status of who else is on this list:
David Stremme: lost his ride at Penske for 2010
Bobby Labonte: lost his ride *mid-season* at Hall of Fame/Yates
Reed Sorenson: lost his ride for 2010 at the new Petty/Yates team

Let's see if these guys step up their game as they try to find new rides for next year.

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Proof that Chase Bonus Points are Meaningless

2009-09-18T08:30:00.003-04:00

Despite all this talk about "needing to win to get those extra 10 chase bonus points", it actually turns out in the past seasons, those bonus points have been absolutely meaningless.

In the first few Chases, they gave out 5 points per rankings in the points standings. Then they switched to 10 points per win. In all cases, however, those points have not had a meaningful effect on the final championship.

The only thing that has mattered is how many points each driver scored in those final 10 races. The bonus points have been meaningless.

Here's the data:

2004: The bonus points changed 0 of the 10 final standings.

2005: Without bonus points, Carl Edwards would beat Greg Biffle for second. (Technically Edwards was tied for second with Biffle in 2005, and without bonus points he would have been tied with Tony Stewart for first. But due to tiebreakers based on number of wins, the resulting affect would just make him second, as in reality he finished "third" in 2005, because Biffle won the tiebreaker between the two of them).

2006: Bonus points only swapped Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth's position in the final standings for second and third.

2007: Jeff Burton and Tony Stewart swapped sixth and seventh because of bonus points.

2008: Kyle Busch would have been 12th instead of 10th without any bonus points.

That's it! Those are the only effects bonus points have had. So forget about all this talk about "Chase Seeding". It's nonsense and has no effect on the final standings.

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Jimmie Johnson Has Most Points at Chase Tracks in 2009

2009-09-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

Of the 10 tracks left this season, we have already visited 8 of them so far.

An interesting exercise would be to see who scored the most points at those 8 tracks on our first visits this season.

Here we go: (Note I am only considering the 12 drivers who made the Chase. In fact, Matt Kenseth and David Reutimann would be high up on this list. Kyle Busch would be ahead of Juan Montoya too.)

Not surprisingly, Jimmie Johnson leads this standings. It's possible the 48 team spent most of their research time this year focused on the "chase" tracks, and letting the other 18 races come to them more normally.

Brian Vickers, who barely cracked this year's Top 12, is also barely hanging on to the bottom of these standings. The last chase track we visited was the previous race at Loudon, 10 races ago. Since that time Vickers has been on a tear, and maybe he can carry that momentum to a more successful set of races the second time around.

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Statistics and common sense show why Kyle Busch should miss the Chase. NASCAR should make no tweaks because of this.

2009-09-16T14:24:00.007-04:00

Everyone keeps talking about how important it is to have Kyle Busch in this year's Chase.

Most ridiculous is the talk that he *deserves* to be in this year, or that NASCAR should accommodate him by making rules changes in the future.

I disagree. Here's why.

Even though he's tied for first in wins, notice that he is:

Tied for 14th in Top 10s
15th in laps completed
Tied for 16th in races running at the finish
Tied for 17th in lead lap finishes
20th in miles completed

What part of this suggests that he should be a top 12 driver, let alone have a chance at being the number one driver?

Also, using my Watermill score approximator, Kyle Busch is tied for 15th in the Watermill score. Remember this score is the best simple approximator of the current NASCAR points system. It combines Wins plus Top 10s plus races running at finish plus lead lap finishes.

70	Tony Stewart
65	Jeff Gordon
64	Jimmie Johnson
62	Denny Hamlin
62	Mark Martin
59	Juan Montoya
59	Kasey Kahne
59	Kurt Busch
58	Carl Edwards
58	Greg Biffle
58	Ryan Newman
57	Matt Kenseth
56	Brian Vickers
55	David Reutimann
54	Clint Bowyer
54	Kyle Busch

See how low Kyle is on this standings. The top 11 on this score made the Chase. Busch is behind Kenseth, Vickers, and Reutimann here. His lack of consistency keeps him out, and by any measure he hasn't performed up to speed this year.

Remember he's only 14th as far as Top 10s go. He only has 2 DNFs, but he has 7 races where he finished off the lead lap. And he has 8 lead lap finsihes where he was outside the Top 10.

NASCAR is not to blame for Busch missing the Chase. As it is, 12 drivers is probably too many to include, and if Busch can't get himself in the top 12, nobody should complaining for *another* points tweak, just to put him in this freak scenario where his season was so volatile.

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Tony Stewart has 30 Percent Chance of Winning Title

2009-09-15T15:53:00.000-04:00

As we did our Chase qualifying probability tables earlier this year, we are now back with the Championship percentage probability tables.

We kick it off with a simulated model of 14,950 potential outcomes in the next 10 races. And adjust for the current points standings (5000 through 5040), we get percentages for who will end the chase with the most points.

Right now we see Tony Stewart at the top of the list, with strong competition from 4 guys in particular: Hendrick drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Mark Martin, along with our most recent race winner Denny Hamlin.

Stewart makes the top of the list because 4497 combinations out of the 14950 total end up with him winning the title. Again, this is based on performance of each driver this year.

In fact, Hamlin has scored by far the most points in the last 12 races of the season. If he repeats that performance in the final 10, he could win the title.

Unless Juan Montoya has a new trick up his sleeve, his "chase racing" strategy will not translate to any shot of winning the title.

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Robby Gordon still leads the FLOPPER standings

2009-09-11T08:44:00.002-04:00

Taking a quick look at the bottom end of 2009 performance, we update our FLOPPER standings. We saw strong performances from David Stremme, Paul Menard, and Robby Gordon. They finished 14th, 15th, and 16th at Richmond. Amazing stuff to have all three of them finish in the top 20. It's like nobody wants to win this FLOPPER this year. David Ragan's 33th place is more like it. He's still gunning for it, as he got 51 points closer to Robby Gordon.

Even Bobby Labonte was able to find a new ride and get a lead lap 18th place finish. It's important that he found a ride for those 7 races he lost in the 96 car. Remember that you need to compete in every race to be FLOPPER eligible. One missed race and you're out.

The big loser was Kevin Harvick, whose second place at Richmond has dropped him off the first page of these standings. Let's see if he can race his way back into contention later this season.

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Matt Kenseth 56%, Brian Vickers 44%: Updated Chase Qualifying Probabilities Going Into Richmond

2009-09-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

With one race left before chase qualifying, you can almost throw out all the old probability tables we've discussed before. Obviously anything can happen in this final race.

Fortunately we have a guide to use: the previous 25 races this season. If we simulate this Saturday night's race at Richmond by taking the results from the past 25 races this year, we can narrow the possibilities for what the standings could look like. Most importantly, we can use this to get a good sense for each driver's probability for making the top 12.

Click on the table for a larger version:

The only exception in this simulation is if a driver performs better or worse than they've done all year. A good example of this is Kurt Busch, who scored only 49 points this weekend at Atlanta. That was his worst performance of 2009. It took him down from a 100 percent chance of making the chase to a 96 percent chance. And if the Atlanta results repeat themselves at Richmond, he will actually fall out of the chase to 13th place in the standings. It's a crazy possibility, but anybody from Carl Edwards down can crash out of Richmond and knock themselves out of the top 12.

Some other interesting items:

1) The 20 point gap between Brian Vickers and Matt Kenseth in the standings translates to a 12 percentage point difference in making the Top 12.

2) If the results this weekend match exactly with the spring race at Richmond earlier this year, then Kyle Busch will replace Matt Kenseth in the top 12.

3) Everybody below Kyle Busch in points is out. ESPN/ABC should stop highlighting those guys in yellow on their scrolling leaderboard. Let's only focus on Vickers and Busch as the two guys outside the bubble. The rest are toast. Sorry David Reutimann, better luck next year.

4) We see in the table on the right, the range for 12th place points is 3168-3237. The range for 13th place is 3103-3211. The two ranges have a big overlap with each other. 3125 to 3162 is the range between fifth in points and eleventh in points. Everybody is very close to the bubble. Anybody from Edwards down could get last place and fall to 13th.

Showing the table in our normal form, this is the summary:

Like I said, if somebody has their worst performance of the year, even a 100 percent chance of making it in won't help now. What I mean by 100 percent is they will make the top 12 as long as they perform within the range of their previous finishes this year.

I do know that there is a 100 percent chance of an exciting race this Saturday night.

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Tony Eury Jr replacement showing no statistical improvement for Dale Earnhardt Jr

2009-09-05T18:52:00.001-04:00

Did changing crew chiefs make any difference for Dale Earnhardt, Jr?

Tony Eury, Jr. lasted 12 races this season with Dale Jr. Since then, we’ve had another 12 races, making this a perfect time to take another snapshot of his performance. Have results improved at all?

First consider his performance all year, in the table below:

(Remember that Watermills is the basic estimate for performance: Wins + Top 10s + Lead Lap Finishes + Racing at the Finish.)

Let’s take a look at the summary between the two halves of the season so far. Click the image for a bigger version:

At quick glance, it does not appear there have been any improvements. His main improvement has been the increase in lead lap finishes. He’s had a marginal gain in watermills and his average start.

But in these last 12 races, Dale Jr actually has fewer top 10s, more DNFs, fewer points, fewer laps led, and a worse average finish. He’s actually scored the 21st most points in this set of 12 races, so he’s done worse in the standings than earlier this season.

The *one* bright side are the last two races, where he scored consecutive top 10s for the first time all season. Let’s see if that picks up in the final 12 races of the season. So far there isn’t anything else hopeful to point to.

Is it too early to say that the crew chief was not the problem in Dale Jr’s case?

Take a look at the table here on the left.

We see the breakdown of points standings for the first 12 races of the year, and the next 12 races.

See how Earnhardt has been stuck in the same part of the pack, actually dropping down a bit. Guys like Marcos Ambrose, Casey Mears, Joey Logano, and Jamie McMurray have all leapfrogged over him in performance from the first 12 races to the next 12 races.

They have all been able to make adjustments and improve their performance later on in the season. Earnhardt’s team has not shown that capability.

Finally, the table here on the right shows how each driver has improved from the first 12 races to the next 12.

See Earnhardt down there in the lower portion of the pack, one of the drivers who have actually had worse performance in this portion of the season than previous.

In conclusion, the evidence does not suggest replacing Tony Eury, Jr. has improved Earnhardt’s performance. We’ll see if these two most recent top 10s suggest a new trend is coming for the final segment of the season.

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The Best Simple Metric for Predicing the full NASCAR points standings

2009-08-30T17:00:00.000-04:00

Forget, for a second, everything you know about the current NASCAR points system: 185 points for a win, 34 points for last place, 5 points for leading a lap and 5 points for leading the most laps.

Imagine if the NASCAR points system consisted only of this:

1 point for finishing the race
1 point for finishing on the lead lap
1 point for finishing in the top 10
1 point for winning the race

In this system, you would get 0 points for not finishing and 4 points for winning. How relevant a points system would this create? Who would the champion be in this system?

What if I told you that in seven of the last eight seasons, the champion in the traditional NASCAR points system was the same as the driver in my fictional system?

For our purposes, let’s call this the Watermill Score. Ignoring the reset of points caused by the Chase, in every single Chase year the driver who scored the most total points all season was the same driver who had the highest Watermill Score. The year 2002 is the only exception because of a rare closeness in the competition, where seven drivers were within 226 points of the champion.

In 2009, for example, the top three under this system are Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. They also are the top three in the traditional standings.

In fact, going back every single year this decade, there is a .98 correlation between the Watermill Score and the traditional NASCAR points system, not just at the top of the standings, but for every spot down the line.

In every single year, the Watermill Score is more correlated than any other individual metric of Top 10s, Top 5s, Most Wins, Lead Lap Finishes, Racing at the Finish, Average Finish, Average Start, etc. There is no single other metric that is a better estimator of the points standings.

Why is this interesting? And why is this important?

Despite the complication of the current system, and all of the talk that it needs to be changed, this revelation is interesting because it tells you that the essential factors that go into winning a championship are finishing the race, finishing on the lead lap, getting Top 10s and getting wins. Two of the four points you receive just for being consistent and the other two points you receive for finishing up front. The points system is half-based on consistency and half-based on running up front.

It's important because it suggests a new way to approach race strategy. If you are a crew chief who is thinking about gambling for fuel at the end of the race, think about this math:

If you do not gamble, you are guaranteed a Top 10 finish, which is a guaranteed 3 points in this system. But if you do gamble, and you try to take the win, the risk is that you will fall off the lead lap. Your reward in this case is 4 points; your risk is going home with 1 point. Assuming a 50/50 chance of running out of gas, the average of that is 2.5 points. You would need an 80 percent chance of saving fuel all the way to get back to a 3-point-average scenario. And would you really want to risk that? Is that a good trade?

So when you simplify a situation like this, you can make a quick guess as to what to do. Come in now for the gas, take your guaranteed Top 10 and go home; the guaranteed 3 points is better than anything else. And I have just proved to you that if you can win based on this points system, you will also win in the real NASCAR points system.

Using the Watermill Score as a guide, crew chiefs will take the guaranteed Top 10. They will take the 3 points per race because NO DRIVER THIS DECADE has finished a season above a 3-points-per-race average. Tony Stewart has 66 points in 2009, which is a 2.75-points-per-race average. So whenever you can get a guaranteed Top 10, you should take it every time. The gambles are not worth it in the long run.

By simplifying the points system to this easy checklist, crew chiefs can better come up with strategies during the race without getting caught up in how other drivers are doing, where they might finish the race, etc. Just focus on these four categories (finishing the race, finishing on the lead lap, getting a Top 10, winning) and everything else will work itself out.

Also note the importance of finishing on the lead lap. It is one-fourth of the entire points system here. It is just as important as a Top 10 or winning. Again, if you are having a bad day, if you can still finish on the lead lap, you will earn yourself 2 points. Think about what that means for crews making adjustments to bad cars. Do you swing for the fences on a big adjustment, another gamble, to try to get the car way up in the front, but carry the risk of going the wrong way and sending your car to the back? Or do you focus on smaller adjustments you know will work, even if it means riding around the back of the lead lap?

As we see in this system, the answer is to go for the guaranteed small adjustment. First priority is not losing that lap. If your car is not a Top 10 car this weekend, then focus on finishing on the lead lap, and again the points will take care of themselves.

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Updated What if Nascar Used Formula 1 Points Standings

2009-08-29T14:22:00.001-04:00

As I showed earlier this month, the NASCAR standings might be a lot more interesting if we were using the Formula 1 points system. Drivers like Kyle Busch and Mark Martin would be in the thick of a championship race, we might not even need a Chase playoff with this format, and drivers like Juan Montoya who are racing ultra-conservatively would not be anywhere close to the title hunt at this time.

Let's update what those standings would look like if we were using the F1 system right now. These standings are after Saturday night's Bristol Race.

Notice here that guys like Kyle Busch and Mark Martin are in the Top 5, and that makes a lot more sense given how strong they've raced this year. Sure, they've had some bad luck and crashed out of a few races, but do we really want to penalize them that harshly for such bad luck? This is a question of major philosophical proportions. Is NASCAR in the game of rewarding good runs, or in the game of punishing you for a bad race?

Could we really accept a champion like Juan Montoya, who has been openly admitting to "Chase Racing"? Sure Matt Kenseth's "boring" 2003 title was the impetus for creating the Chase, but by keeping the exact same points system over the final 10 races, what have they really done to change this super conservative concept of winning?

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Robby Gordon Trying to Defend his 2008 FLOPPER Award

2009-08-27T15:01:00.001-04:00

As I highlighted at the end of last year's season, Robby Gordon won the infamous FLOPPER award.

Well folks, he is on pace to do it again. It would be the first back to back title since Dale Jarrett accomplished the feat in 1988-1989.

For those who aren't familiar, FLOPPER is the driver who:

Finishes
Last in
Overall
Points while
Participating in
Every
Race

After Bristol's race, we have had 24 races. So take a look in that dark deserted part of the standings, where the ghosts of David Stremme, Paul Menard, and Michael Waltrip hang out.

Fortunately for Waltrip, Scott Speed, John Andretti, and David Gilliland, they have each missed a race or two in 2009, eliminating them from FLOPPER contention.

See, the FLOPPER award goes not to the absolute worst driver, but to the unique driver who can find the healthy balance between the skill it takes to qualify for every race, and the skill lacking to be the worst of that group.

Here are the current standings after Bristol:

Notice that only 350 points separate the bottom ten drivers, from Kevin Harvick down to Robby Gordon.

Right now Paul Menard is the closest competitor to Gordon. Notice I've color coded each group of drivers every 100 points out. Kevin Harvick was fourth in the Chase last year, and is now infamously making the top 10 on this table. David Ragan barely missed the Chase last year, and now hopes he'll be able to barely miss this new title as well.

This will be a very interesting battle for the rest of the season. Right now Gordon's best hope is he doesn't run one of the final races. But considering he is 34th in owner points right now, over 200 points ahead of 36th, it looks likely he'll be able to qualify for every race this season. Let's see if Menard can find the skill it takes to lose those 60 points he's going to need to reach Gordon.

We'll keep watching, and see what happens...

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Kyle Busch 38 Percent, Matt Kenseth 68 Percent: Updated Chase Qualifying Probabilities for Every Driver

2009-08-25T15:43:00.002-04:00

Following the night race at Bristol, we see a big shakeup in points, and one step closer to the Chase.

With only two weeks to go, it's time to update last week's probability table.

Let's take a look:

First off, due to the strength of the competitors in the 12th through 14th spots, we are updating the Chase 12th place points target to 3172. This is up from 3149 last week, and the 3120 number we had been using the last few weeks. This will also cause some previous "100 percent" numbers to drop a tiny bit. But the overall effect is not changed.

Some notes of interest:

1) We say official goodbye to 17th place Marcos Ambrose and below. With only two races to go, the most somebody can score is 390 points. Marcos is more than 390 points behind 3172, so he is mathematically eliminated from the Chase. So is everybody else behind him. I suggest ESPN should limit the YELLOW bubble labels on their scrolling leader-board to just the names I'm including in my table.

2) We are *ALMOST* going to say goodbye to Clint Bowyer and David Reutimann, who each had poor nights, dropping them to zero percent chances of making the 3172 target. Of course, my percentages are based on performance this year. If one of them won both of the next two races, they could get in. But neither have them have two wins all year, which is why they get 0 percent on this table.

3) Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers have converged to each other. They both have the same chance of getting in, as they are virtually tied in points.

4) Mark Martin's strong run moved him up two spots, and gave him a 20 percent boost in getting into the top 12. Things look a lot better for him now.

5) Kasey Kahne's 28th place was one of his worst finishes of the year, dropping him down a big chunk. Also remember he got 29th in Richmond earlier this season.

6) Similary, Montoya suffered some bad luck and saw a bit of his chances take a hit. Though he still has over a 90 percent shot of getting in as long as he keeps up with his conservative Chase strategy like he has been all year.

7) Say hello to Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin, who each clinched spots of making the 3172 target. They have nothing to worry about going forward. Even last place finishes in the next two races will cover them.

8) There is about a 30 percent chance that the current top 12 will all make it. Right now the strength of both Vickers and Busch suggest one of them will be able to sneak their way in, knocking somebody out.

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Mark Martin 54%, Brian Vickers 46%: Chase Qualifying Probabilites For Every Driver

2009-08-18T16:22:00.000-04:00

The dramatic end to Sunday's Michigan race brought a big shakeup in the points standings, and most especially, the probabilities for each driver's chase qualifying percentages.

Some notes of interest

1) First off, due to the strong performances of the overall driving group, I am moving up the 12th place target level from 3120 points to 3149 points.

2) This 3120 to 3149 points upgrade, along with his bad race on Sunday, is why Juan Montoya's qualifying probability went down from 99.96 percent to 99.44 percent. In any case, the bad Michigan race is not going to affect him all that much.

3) Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle all had mediocre races, finishing outside the top 10. This brought each of their chances down between six and fifteen percent.

4) Like I said last week, Jeff Burton would not win Sunday, and he would be eliminated from the competition.

5) Alan Gustafson's big gamble for fuel ended up with Mark Martin finishing 31st, and losing a huge chunk of his Chase cushion.

6) The big winner of course is Brian Vickers, who got himself right to the edge of Chase contention. We'll see if he can use this momentum to his advantage.

7) Kyle Busch could NOT carry his momentum from last week into a good run at Michigan, and he finds himself back in the same bad spot as he did a few weeks ago.

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Top Drivers Stepping Up Their Game in 2009

2009-08-15T16:03:00.005-04:00

Comparing the top 20 in the Sprint Cup standings after 22 races this year and last year, we find one striking observation:

Comparing each place in the standings between first and twentieth, in almost every place the 2009 standings have more points (notice all the green in the right column). What do we learn from this?

1) Kyle Busch's 2627 points this year would be one point short of Matt Kenseth's 12th place number last year.

2) Mark Martin's 2716 points, good enough for only 11th this year, would actually be a comfortable 8th place last year.

3) Despite how "dominant" everybody thought Kyle Busch was last year, Tony Stewart's 2009 performance in fact blows it away.

The question in all this is "WHY"? I have two theories:

1) The increased gap between rich and poor teams in the sport is creating an arms race at the top of the standings.

2) The emergence of the start-and-park brigade in 2009 has been a consistent force at the bottom of the standings, serving some buffer for these good drivers. Even if they have a bad day, they might finish 37th instead of 43rd simply because the start-and-park guys have already gone to the garage. So there are always a few more points to be had.

What do other readers think? I am open to your thoughts and feedback.

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Kyle Busch 43 Percent, Matt Kenseth 78 Percent: Updated Chase Qualifying Probabilities for Every Driver

2009-08-12T11:34:00.000-04:00

Following up on last week's post, we have an updated Chase Qualifying Probability table.

Some notes of interest:

1) Kyle Busch doubled his chances of making the Chase by his great run at Watkins Glen on Monday.

2) David Reutimann is basically out of it at this point. He was so close a couple weeks ago, but these two Monday races have really taken him out of contention.

3) If Jeff Burton leads the most laps and wins the next 4 races, he might barely make the Chase by 10 points. Look for him to be officially eliminated next week when he doesn't win.

4) Montoya upgraded himself from 99% to 100%. His "chase racing" strategy has paid off. But is he a threat to win the title? No.

5) Mark Martin and Ryan Newman had bad days on Monday, and that took their chances down a little bit. Still, both of them have very good shots of getting in. They don't have a huge amount to worry about.

6) The good runs by Vickers and Bowyer helped them a little, but it's not enough still to make a big difference. They need to keep scoring Top 5s the rest of the way to get in.

7) There is a 54% chance that the current top 12 stays in tact. This is the first time that number has been above 50% since we've been monitoring it.

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Tony Stewart has a 43% Chance of Winning the Chase

2009-08-11T11:56:00.006-04:00

After Monday's win at Watkins Glen, Tony helped himself with an extra 10 bonus points for the chase.

Running through all the numbers, and including bonus points for wins that each driver will have, these are the probabilities for winning the chase for each driver. This table is based on how each driver has performed so far this year. If somebody were to perform their best or their worst during the Chase, then these probabilities might misrepresent that.

But assuming what we've seen so far is a good sample for what we are going to see, then this table is a good approximation.

43%	Tony Stewart
15%	Jeff Gordon
13%	Jimmie Johnson
6%	Mark Martin
5%	Kurt Busch
5%	Kyle Busch
4%	Denny Hamlin
3%	Ryan Newman
2%	Greg Biffle
2%	Matt Kenseth
1%	Kasey Kahne
1%	Carl Edwards
0%	Juan Montoya

We see a few interesting points here.

1) If Kyle Busch would qualify for the Chase, he'd be a stronger threat than several other drivers who are already locked into the chase. We already know this from common sense, and it's good to see the math support it.

2) Montoya's "chase racing" strategy has been good enough to qualify for the chase, but it is definitely not going to help him win the title. Again, we know this from common sense - but the numbers show again the fallacy in his strategy.

3) If Tony Stewart keeps doing what he has all season, it will be tough to beat him, despite the fact he'd be losing such a big points lead on the reset.

4) Despite Jimmie Johnson's lead over Jeff Gordon in the points standings and the win column, it is in fact Gordon who has a slightly better shot to win the title.

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Denny Hamlin leads SAL Ratings after 21 Races

2009-08-10T08:57:00.005-04:00

In previous posts, I have explained the "SAL" rating (Start Adjusted Leaders), as a simple-to-calculate but very effective proxy for speed. Basically it's how many laps you lead as percentage of laps you completed, multiplied by how far back you started to get up front.

I first introduced the rankings last season, showing Kyle Busch #1 for 2008.

Then I reviewed the top ranked drivers since 1992.

And after the first, second, and eighth races of the 2009, I reviewed who topped the charts in SAL. We found that after eight races this year, Denny Hamlin was on top. And in fact, after Pocono's race, he is *still* on top.

Look at the table:

What does this tell us? Quite a few things actually:

1) Despite being the points leader, Tony Stewart hasn't been a dominating speed demon on the track. In fact, most of his success this year has come from completing nearly every race in the top 10, but not necessarily going out front and crushing the competition

2) Joe Gibbs Racing does in fact have a lot of race-day speed this year, as we see both Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch up there at the top of the charts.

3) Non-chasers like Earnhardt and Truex have actually been faster on track than guys like Montoya. More evidence of Montoya's very conservative "points racing" strategy, as opposed to the normal "trying to win" strategy most guys employ.

4) Of the four guys right outside the chase bubble, only Kyle Busch has shown really strong speed. Reutimann, Vickers, and Bowyer are very low on this table. And that makes sense too, since they are almost never factors to win a race.

5) Richard Childress Racing has not shown any speed this year, as you see both Burton and Bowyer way down the list.

6) Roush isn't as bad as you think. Despite the small number of wins, the combo of Biffle/Kenseth/Edwards are actually ahead of both Stewart-Haas cars

7) The champion is likely to come from one of the top 5 racers (usually with SAL ratings above 100 as we've seen in the past). This is a bad sign for Tony Stewart, since he might be finishing each race consistently, but he is rarely ever the car to beat in any given race. He'll need to step it up come Chase time.

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Quantifying How Much Denny Hamlin's Bump Killed David Reutimann's Chase Chances.

2009-08-09T23:59:00.000-04:00

In Ricky Craven's recent piece, he suggests that Reutimann lost 60 points due to Hamlin bumping him out of the way.

Let's see what that means in terms of percentage chances of making the chase.

Going into the Pocono race, Reutimann only had a 26% chance of making the Chase. He left Pocono much worse, with only a 10% chance of qualifying.

But had he earned those extra 60 points, his Chase chances would be 39% instead. Simply put:

No bump = 39%
Bump = 10%

Look at the standings this way:

Shows you how big a swing one bump can have on a guy's season. Reutimann *should* be mad at Hamlin for doing that to him. Hamlin destroyed his entire chance of making the chase. From almost a half chance of getting in, he is now a one-in-ten shot. What a disaster.

It would only be fitting for Reutimann to get some payback from Hamlin later this year.

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What if Nascar used the Formula 1 Points System?

2009-08-05T08:01:00.001-04:00

Recently we've been hearing a lot of complaints about the quality of the racing in Nascar. Should more points go to the winner to encourage harder racing? Should the Top 35 rule go away? Should teams like Montoya's #42, who have been speaking out loud their intention to "points race" instead of take risks to win, be able to conservatively race and still make the chase? Should teams with a minimum of 1 or 2 wins be automatically entered into the Chase?

Well let's take a look at what the points would be if we used the current Formula 1 points system. This is the current 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 system that was designed in 2003, to help balance reliability and consistency to their previously top-heavy way of awarding points.

First off let's breakdown how many finishes each driver had between first and eighth. This table is ranked in order of current points standings:

You can click on the images for bigger versions.

Then let's apply 10 points for each win, 8 points for each second, etc, all the way down to 1 point for each eighth place. Here's that table, and on the left side we see the total points. Notice this table is ranked by the new points standings.

What do we see here? That wins end up being a big deal. Guys like Mark Martin and Kyle Busch would be well in the top 12. Drivers like Montoya would be well out of the top 12, since he only has one top five finish all year.

There would only be 32 drivers that have scored any points. Would we even need a Top 35 rule? Could you just say that anybody with at least 1 or 2 points can qualify for the rest of the season? Would this encourage below-average teams to try to race hard to make into the top 8? Would they take more chances, change pit strategies, stay out and hope for rain, gamble on fuel, etc? Could we see a much wilder set of racing out there, because *everybody* has to get a top 8, and nothing less would matter?

With this points format, would we even need a chase at all? Drivers like Denny Hamlin and Mark Martin are not that far away from Tony Stewart in this points system, and if they got on a hot winning streak, they'd be able to pass him. There would be no season-devastating effects of crashing out of races, so there would be some forgiveness for having a bad day. And guys like Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne, who have not been dominant this year, would be well below Tony's points lead. Should they be allowed to have a points reset in the Chase, and get another shot to be a champion? Haven't we gone far enough this season to see that they are *NOT* the dominant drivers this year?

Also, cars who were many laps down would not try to get back on the track just to make laps, "just for points". Do we need them out there going slow, taking up space, holding up the leaders, and potentially causing more accidents? Since they'd never be able to get back into the top 8, there would be no reason to get back on the track. And it would be okay too, since a bad finish wouldn't kill your chances for the title. Our current system hurts you do for doing badly, rather than rewarding you for doing well. Wouldn't we rather have drivers rewarded for doing well, instead of just avoiding a bad finish?

These are some ideas. What do people think? Is this the type of points system that could work in Nascar, reward drivers for racing hard, and help encourage more racing all the time? Do the new standings seem "better" than the old standings? Does it make more sense that Kyle Busch and Mark Martin are in the top 6 here, while Montoya is down in 16th, since he has not been a dominating force at all this year?

I am not saying this is the perfect points system for Nascar - but it could fix a lot of the problems we have. What do you think?

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Kyle Busch 21 Percent, Greg Biffle 76 Percent: Updated Chase Qualifying Probabilities for Every Driver

2009-08-04T10:13:00.008-04:00

Following up to last week's post, showing the chances of each driver qualifying for the Chase, here is the updated percentage table after Monday's Pocono race.

Note a few things:

1) Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth really improved their chances of making the Chase by both coming home with top 11 finishes on Monday.

2) Brian Vickers and Clint Bowyer had breakout performances Monday, and this gave them huge increases in their Chase chances. If they can keep getting top 6 finishes over the next month, they could very well make it in.

3) David Reutimann was the big loser yesterday. He went from a 26% chance to 10% Chance. That's a huge drop.

4) Not surprisingly, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon clinched their way into the Chase.

5) The chance of anybody in the current top 12 *NOT* making the Chase moved down to 51%. There is a 49% chance the current top 12 will stay the same. This is mainly because Kyle Busch and Reutimann, who were the closest contenders, did not live up to potential, while at the same time, guys like Martin, Kenseth, and Biffle had good runs to stay well inside the top 12. This is a big improvement from last week's 67% chance that we'd see one of the top 12 drop out.

Click on the image for a bigger version.

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Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne Most Correlated Drivers in 2009

2009-07-31T10:23:00.011-04:00

Take a look at the driver correlation matrix, based on their finishes after 20 races this year. In all these blogs, you can always click on the pictures to get a larger view.

What sticks out the most? For a quick review, see the little table here - that correlations above 0.50 and below are -.50 are really big. In my article I will focus on anything above .40 and below -.40, so we can look at some extra data points hiding under the surface.

What we find is that Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne have the strongest relationship with each other, more so than any other pair of drivers. They generally perform similarly at each race, either both of them do poorly, or both of them do well.

On the flip side of the spectrum, Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano are the most negatively correlated with each other. When one does well, the other does badly, and vice versa.

What can all this tell us? It may suggest that certain teams are doing a better job than others in getting all their drivers on the same page. Maybe it tells us that certain drivers have a much more similar style than we realized, that they tend to perform well at the same tracks, and perform badly at the same tracks. We see this with Johnson and Kahne in a big way.

And it can tell us which drivers are the opposite of each other, doing well when the other guy does badly. Like we do with Bowyer and Logano. Maybe their styles of driving are not compatible with each other?

Most notably, higher up in the standings, we see former teammates Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman with a high negative -.43 correlation between each other. Maybe they are drivers with such different styles that they couldn't work well together on the same team. Look now how much better they are both doing since they split up as teammates.

Let's see how teammates this season are doing:

Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart have a correlation of 0. that's right, 0.00 - meaning their results are not related to each other. In fact, Tony is more correlated with the Hendrick guys (Gordon, Johnson, Martin) and even Juan Montoya than with Newman.

At Gibbs, Denny Hamlin is positively correlated with Kyle Busch, but negatively correlated with Joey Logano. At 0.08, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano are almost completely uncorrelated with each other.

Childress teammates Bowyer and Burton have a -0.12 correlation with each other, so despite being next to each other in points, they don't tend to perform next to each on the track. Could this be part of the reason they are struggling this year?

Roush's Biffle and Kenseth are somewhat correlated with each other (0.26), but Carl Edwards is less correlated with both of them, especially with Biffle (only 0.05 between Edwards and Biffle).

It will be interesting to see over the rest of the season how these relationships play out. Will people still perform just as similarly or just as differently in the next 16 races?

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67 Percent Chance that one of the Top 12 drops out

2009-07-30T00:01:00.002-04:00

Let's followup on yesterday's post, where I showed the probabilities of each driver qualifying for the chase.

We saw that each driver ranked between 5 and 12 had at least a 68% chance of making the chase.

However, there is ONLY A 33% CHANCE THAT THE CURRENT 12 WILL ALL QUALIFY. MOST LIKELY SOMEBODY WILL DROP OUT OF THE TOP 12.

We see this by multiplying the percentages of each driver ranked 5-12. You see this in the BOLD section of the image below.

Multiplying percentages converts individual probabilities to a GROUP probability, will ALL of these guys stay in? Only a 33% for that. The math is here if you are interested.

33% chance of nobody dropping out means a 67% chance that somebody WILL drop out. Despite individually strong qualifying chances, there's a much slimmer chance that ALL these drivers will hit their potential.

This is good news for guys like Kyle Busch and David Reutimann who are looking to break in, since chances go against everybody in front of them all doing well in the next 6 races. As long as Busch and Reutimann perform to the upper end of their own potential.

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Kyle Busch 23 Percent, Matt Kenseth 68 Percent: Chase Qualifying Probabilities for Every Driver

2009-07-29T08:30:00.003-04:00

I ran some analysis. Let's take a look at the results.

20 races down, 6 more to go. If each driver runs the next 6 races in some combination of their previous 20, there are 38760 possibilities for how many points they can score. (A link here for those interested in seeing the math.) How many of those 38760 possibilities can get them to the magic 3120 points total? The 3120 number is 120 x 26. 120 is the PPR needed to get 12th place, as we've seen in many of our past posts (here, here, and here)

Assuming each driver doesn't score their very best or very worst 6 races, the 38760 possibilities are an excellent summary of what will most likely happen.

I ran the numbers for every driver, and compared what portion of the combinations were enough to get them into the Chase. The data is below. You can click on the image for a bigger picture.

For example, Kyle Busch has 9078 possible ways he could score more than 773 points in 6 races (based on his first 20), which is only 23% of all the possibilities. His best 6 races this year scored him 1046 points. His worst 6 races scored 414 points. But only 23% of his 6-race combinations this year were above the 773 points he needs to reach 3120.

What you see here is color coding based on groups. Tony Stewart is going to make the chase even if he gets last place in the next 6 races.

The next set of drivers, in light blue, are common-sense certainties, given their performance this year.

The drivers in yellow all have a very strong chance of qualifying, with chances between 68 and 97 percent. Notice these are spots 5 through 12, the same drivers currently qualified.

The drivers in light orange make up spots 13-16. They have a slight chance of getting in, based on their performance this year. Between Reutimann's 26% and Bowyer's 1%. Although it's tough - they have already shown the ability this year to get the finishes they need to crack the top 12. Not likely, but it is possible.

The drivers in pink are not mathematically eliminated yet, but they haven't shown the performance this year to make it. They'd have to come up with their best streak of the year right now.

And finally, the drivers in orange, are already mathematically eliminated. Since the most you can get is 195 points per race, the guys at Harvick's level and below, don't have any chance of getting in, no matter how well they drive.

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Montoya's Team Math is wrong

2009-07-27T16:56:00.004-04:00

If you saw the race on ESPN this week, they mentioned Montoya's team calculation that he needed to average a 14th place finish to make into the chase.

That sounds *VERY* similar to the post I made on March 11 of this year, suggesting that you need about 120 Points Per Race to make 12th place after 26 races. The post is here http://36races.blogspot.com/2009/03/ppr-and-getting-into-chase.html

The *mistake* however that Montoya's team is making, is comparing the 120 Points average to an average of 14th place finishes. Yes, we know that 14th place earns you 121 points, but....

The Average of Finishes DOES NOT EQUAL The Average of Points.

Montoya's team is making a big mistake, and we'll go through some examples why.

This is because of the non-linearity of the way points are awarded. Let's consider a few examples:

14th place is 121 points. So after 2 races if you got 14th and 14th, you'd have 242 points, and an average finish of 14.0

But what other ways can you have a 2-race average of 14.0? And how many points would that earn you?

Look at the table below:

Do you see the pattern here? If you average a 14.0 with mediocre finishes, you only get 242 points. But if you can average a 14.0 with one really good finish (like a win) then you can actually score a lot more than 242 points.

And look at this graph below, showing the total points after two races. Again you see the big advantage when one of your races is good - much better than two mediocre finishes:

The point here is that you don't just want to race for a 14th place, but for higher spots - since it will serve you better on your bad days, giving you more cushion.

From my previous posting on March 11 and my visualizations from May, we already know that you need to average 120 (or call it 121 in this case) points per race over the course of the season, so the more you win, the worse you can do in other races and still be okay. This year we have a perfect example: Montoya has an average finish better than Mark Martin's, but because Mark has scored 4 wins, he has more points than Montoya. Mark's DNFs have been balanced out by his wins. Montoya does not have this luxury, because with ZERO top fives all year, he's relied on a bunch of finishes between 6-15. He hasn't the same cushion to save a bad day as the other Chase drivers.

Maybe it's because their math is all wrong, and they are focused too much on Top 15s instead of the Top 5s you need to really make a move up in points.

Finally, consider this perspective. What possible sets of two finishes would earn a minimum of 242 points.

Notice again, that when you have a really good finish in there, you can balance it with a bad finish, have a lower average finish than 14.0, but still have more than 121 points per race. Look at what happens if you finish 31st to 35th in the first race. If you win the next race, your average finish is in the 16-18 area, but you always earned more than 242 points.

The final point to all of this is that YOU ARE NOT TRYING TO RACE FOR POSITIONS, BUT YOU NEED TO RACE FOR POINTS INSTEAD!

And the best way to race for points, is to go out there and RACE FOR WINS.

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2009 is Statistically the Most Competitive Season of the Decade

2009-06-11T09:13:00.018-04:00

I take a look at the points standings after 14 races for each season 2000-2009, and amazingly found that this year is the most competitive of the decade.

Take a look at these three facts. (All of them based on the first 14 races of the season)

This year's 12th place driver, Denny Hamlin, has more points than the 12th place driver in any other year all decade.
This year's leader, Tony Stewart, has the second lowest points compared to other leaders this decade.
This year's points difference between first and twelfth is the smallest all decade.

Look at some of the data:

Tony Stewart's 2043 points after 14 races is the second lowest total for a leader all decade. Notice that Jeff Gordon in 2007 was the most checked out by this point in the season:

2007	2249
2006	2145
2000	2116
2003	2115
2004	2113
2008	2084
2002	2064
2005	2062
2009	2043
2001	1996

This year's 12th place in points, Denny Hamlin, is the strongest on record all decade. In fact, 2009 is so competitive, that 15th place Juan Pablo Montoya (1617 points) would have enough points to be 12th place in 2008 or 10th in 2007. Good enough for the Chase then, but not good enough now. Amazing.

2009	1679
2005	1670
2004	1670
2000	1669
2006	1642
2002	1623
2008	1614
2001	1600
2007	1586
2003	1579

And the difference between first and 12th is the narrowest it's been all decade.

2009	364
2005	392
2001	396
2002	441
2004	443
2000	447
2008	470
2006	503
2003	536
2007	663

Two other interesting facts:

The 1679 points for 12th place this year is so strong that in 2003 and 2007, it would have been good enough for 8th place.
The 2043 points for Tony Stewart this year would have only been good enough for 3rd place in points in 2004, 2006, and 2008.

While people might be complaining that there isn't enough on-track competition this year, you can't make that argument about the competition in the standings. The leader hasn't checked out, and the back of the pack is running strong. Everybody has a chance. The competition is the best all decade.

The full data table is here below. First in total Points, and then Points Per Race (PPR)

Rank	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000
1st	2043	2084	2249	2145	2062	2113	2115	2064	1996	2116
2nd	1972	2063	2007	2097	1939	2055	1939	1928	1970	2018
3rd	1940	1939	2002	1907	1781	1889	1882	1899	1869	2014
4th	1840	1856	1944	1888	1759	1874	1828	1852	1866	1955
5th	1819	1800	1828	1866	1734	1854	1753	1826	1796	1868
6th	1762	1799	1733	1850	1733	1812	1745	1820	1768	1855
7th	1753	1781	1710	1758	1715	1803	1738	1794	1755	1821
8th	1745	1767	1659	1715	1714	1773	1671	1728	1748	1810
9th	1731	1719	1648	1682	1700	1735	1627	1706	1655	1798
10th	1725	1690	1613	1669	1682	1674	1623	1699	1613	1732
11th	1701	1679	1597	1644	1681	1672	1602	1690	1611	1676
12th	1679	1614	1586	1642	1670	1670	1579	1623	1600	1669
13th	1678	1607	1564	1547	1659	1651	1575	1611	1560	1660
14th	1619	1604	1531	1530	1624	1581	1558	1551	1512	1608
15th	1617	1580	1487	1508	1579	1572	1552	1531	1503	1589
16th	1576	1558	1454	1504	1558	1524	1536	1478	1454	1466
17th	1536	1502	1446	1482	1558	1524	1528	1447	1436	1450
18th	1469	1464	1425	1437	1514	1490	1481	1440	1426	1446
19th	1447	1455	1412	1411	1491	1469	1468	1435	1411	1445
20th	1434	1439	1367	1405	1473	1432	1424	1415	1401	1436

Rank	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000
1st	146	149	161	153	147	151	151	147	143	151
2nd	141	147	143	150	139	147	139	138	141	144
3rd	139	139	143	136	127	135	134	136	134	144
4th	131	133	139	135	126	134	131	132	133	140
5th	130	129	131	133	124	132	125	130	128	133
6th	126	129	124	132	124	129	125	130	126	133
7th	125	127	122	126	123	129	124	128	125	130
8th	125	126	119	123	122	127	119	123	125	129
9th	124	123	118	120	121	124	116	122	118	128
10th	123	121	115	119	120	120	116	121	115	124
11th	122	120	114	117	120	119	114	121	115	120
12th	120	115	113	117	119	119	113	116	114	119
13th	120	115	112	111	119	118	113	115	111	119
14th	116	115	109	109	116	113	111	111	108	115
15th	116	113	106	108	113	112	111	109	107	114
16th	113	111	104	107	111	109	110	106	104	105
17th	110	107	103	106	111	109	109	103	103	104
18th	105	105	102	103	108	106	106	103	102	103
19th	103	104	101	101	107	105	105	103	101	103
20th	102	103	98	100	105	102	102	101	100	103

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Points at the Chase Tracks this year

2009-06-09T13:00:00.006-04:00

There are 10 tracks in the Chase. We've already visited 7 of them so far this year. If we consider the points ONLY from these 7 events, we can get a good guess for who will contend in the chase.

Here are the total points from those 7 races:

1075	Jimmie Johnson
1027	Tony Stewart
993	Greg Biffle
957	Kurt Busch
954	Ryan Newman
947	Matt Kenseth
916	Carl Edwards
895	David Reutimann
894	Denny Hamlin
881	Jeff Gordon
834	Kyle Busch
829	Mark Martin
827	Juan Pablo Montoya
824	Brian Vickers
814	Kasey Kahne
783	Jeff Burton

Notice how Jimmie Johnson is checked out from the rest of the crowd. Is that surprising based on his amazing run in the Chase the last several years?

Despite Jeff Gordon's consistent run at the top of the points this year, he's actually struggled at the 7 Chase tracks so far this season. He's ranked 10th in this table, behind guys like Hamlin and Reutimann, who may not even make the Chase.

Another surprise is seeing Greg Biffle up there in Third.

Is it possible these are the only points that matter? Assuming you qualify for the Chase, are the only points that matter the ones you score at the Chase tracks?

Most Points in 10 consecutive Races

2009-06-09T12:38:00.012-04:00

As we think about Chase potential, the previous post listed who had the best set of 10 races, but they were not in consecutive order.

So now let's look at the best consecutive set of 10 races this year. We have five options for this: Races 1-10, Races 2-11, 3-12, 4-13, and 5-14.

Using the same 15 drivers from our previous example, that gives us 75 possible data series to work with.

The best of those rankings are:

1522	Tony Stewart
1516	Ryan Newman
1483	Jimmie Johnson
1475	Jimmie Johnson
1474	Tony Stewart
1472	Jeff Gordon
1458	Ryan Newman
1441	Jeff Gordon
1431	Kurt Busch
1425	Tony Stewart
1418	Jeff Gordon
1412	Kurt Busch
1404	Ryan Newman
1402	Tony Stewart

in 75 data series, only 14 of them have produced more than 1400 points. These 14 data come from just 5 drivers: Stewart, Newman, Johnson, Gordon, Busch. With the exception of Newman, these are all former champions.

If we just consider the best set of 10 consecutive races from the 15 drivers, we can see each driver's best 10 consecutive:

1522	Tony Stewart
1516	Ryan Newman
1483	Jimmie Johnson
1472	Jeff Gordon
1431	Kurt Busch
1392	Mark Martin
1360	Denny Hamlin
1330	Kyle Busch
1326	Jeff Burton
1273	Greg Biffle
1267	David Reutimann
1215	Carl Edwards
1209	Juan Pablo Montoya
1206	Matt Kenseth
1163	Kasey Kahne

This would suggest to us that the same drivers in the top 4 in points (Stewart, Newman, Johnson, Gordon) as the best able to make a strong run at the end of the year to go for the win. Again, these are data we can monitor over the course of the season.

Interesting to see that Kyle Busch (1330) and Jeff Burton (1326) have basically the same best scores here. Yet Busch has the most wins this year, and Burton is part of an RCR team that has severely underperformed this year. It's very eye-opening to see that their best Chase-type scenario is actually the same. And that Hamlin would be the best of the Joe Gibbs cars in this measurement. Would you have ever guessed that?

Tony Stewart has Most Points of all drivers in their ten best races

2009-06-09T12:07:00.012-04:00

And that's not just because he is on the top of the points right now.

(BTW, Click here and here for two other Chase-scenarios I analyzed yesterday)

After 14 races now, we can throw out the worst 4 races for each driver, and see what their total points accumulation has been in their best 10 races. This would be their potential for the Chase - of course assuming they can score those best 10 races all in a row, all at the end of the year.

At least it gives some sense for the overall power of each driver. Notice that Kyle Busch is ranked 9th in these standings. Despite having the most wins, his 6th-10th best races are between 17th and 25th place. Tony's 10th best race is 8th place. A very big difference.

Without further ado, here are the rankings of drivers best 10 races this year. I only looked at the top 15 drivers in points, to include the 12 Chase drivers and 3 closest contenders.

1646	Tony Stewart
1636	Jimmie Johnson
1626	Jeff Gordon
1516	Ryan Newman
1493	Kurt Busch
1478	Mark Martin
1471	Matt Kenseth
1464	Greg Biffle
1430	Kyle Busch
1429	Carl Edwards
1394	David Reutimann
1393	Denny Hamlin
1376	Jeff Burton
1313	Kasey Kahne
1296	Juan Pablo Montoya

Look how Stewart/Johnson/Gordon are the clear leaders of the crowd. All former champions, all with 10-race averages above 162 Points Per Race. This is how you're going to get it done in the Chase. Based on these results, we might limit our potential championship contenders to just these three drivers. Everybody else is still too far off the pace to make a serious run. Obviously though still a lot of competition in the 1400s.

We'll pay attention later this year to see how these standings develop.

Matrix visualizations

2009-05-01T11:27:00.007-04:00

I wanted to show the data from our last example in a different way. Take a look at these two images below. You can click on them to see larger versions. Again, this is points from the 2008 season, under the Traditional non-chase scoring method for all 36 races.

I have various different tables for Points progression over the full year, as well as the the Points Per Race (PPR) progression during the year. I am trying different versions of coloring the data to highlight different areas, so feel free to explore. Notice how consistent these patterns are. That the PPRs remain relatively constant throughout the year. And how the overall points ever so slowly spread out. See in just 2 races, everybody crossed the 500 point boundary. But it took 5 races for everybody to cross the 1000 point boundary. 5 races for everybody to cross 1500, But 9 races for the 20 drivers to cross the 2000 point boundary. The ever-so-slow yet ever-so-predictable fanning out of the points standings.

In the fourth chart, you can see the orange/yellow boundary at 115 points. For 14th/15th places. Look how consistently straight that line remains over the second half of the season.

Or in the final chart, see the 130 point border around 6th place staying very steady.

In all this what do we learn?
Points Per Race are a much better way to think about points progression, as the PPR relationship holds steady over time, constantly spreading out the different drivers in the rankings.
To improve in the stands, the best way to is to increase your PPR. Even a 5 point PPR increase makes a HUGE difference, as you can see her. Leading that lap, fixing up your car after a crash and picking up another spot or two. Not losing a spot on the final restart. Gaining a spot on pit road a couple times a race. These effects have BIG impacts over time. We already knew that, but these numbers help show it to us more clearly.

Visualizing how Points get accumulated

2009-05-01T10:12:00.004-04:00

Following up on my previous posts about Points Per Race (PPR), and how the patterns develop over a season. I wanted to show some graphical examples of this behavior.

In the example today, I considered the 2008 points standings. I counted only the "Traditional" points system, to remove the Chase's effect of reshuffling all the points. I looked at the Top 20 in points each week.

In the first chart, you can see the total points accumulation over the year. It's practically a straight line for each ranking. The only difference is the slope of the points accumulation. But it's a fairly consistent pattern that slowly spreads out the Top 20 over the season.

In the second graph, you can see the Points Per Race. After the first couple races of the year average out, there is a generally consistent level of PPR for each ranking. What it takes to be 5th place or 15th place is reasonably well defined.

You can click on each picture to get a bigger version.

Average Points Per Race in past years

2009-04-21T12:29:00.004-04:00

I took into account the full seasons from 1989 through 2003 (before the Chase started). I looked at the top 10 in rankings each season. And came up with these statistics

Rank	avg	min	max	st. dev
1st	148	133	161	7
2nd	143	132	152	6
3rd	139	129	147	5
4th	135	128	140	4
5th	133	127	139	4
6th	130	124	136	4
7th	127	120	134	4
8th	123	119	130	3
9th	122	112	128	4
10th	120	112	124	4

Despite the fineprint below, here's what I find interesting from the data:

For any given ranking, there is a narrow range of PPR you need to accumulate to get there. Want to finish 5th in points? then you need to average about 133 PPR
The standard deviation is consistent about 4 PPR in rankings 4-10, but increases to 5 points for third place, 6 points for second place, and 7 points for the champion. This shows that the domination of the Top 3 drivers is more varied over time, but the 4th-place onward drivers fall within similar bounds.
In every season but one, the champion needed at least 140 PPR to win the title. Only Tony Stewart's 133 PPR in 2002 serves as the exception, but in that year, 7th place scored 127 PPR (historically average for seventh place. Meaning the Top 7 drivers that year were within 6 points per race of each other. Very close and competitive that year.

(Fineprint: Remember that in these seasons, the number of races increased gradually from 29 races in 1989 to 36 races in 2003. And that in the earlier seasons there weren't always full fields. For example the 1989 night race in Bristol only had 32 drivers take the green flag, not the normal 43-car fields we always have now. Also remember that the number of points awarded to race winners compared to now was 10 points less during the period I analyzed.)

Kyle Busch leads ALRL ratings after 8 races

2009-04-20T11:47:00.001-04:00

Driver	ALRL
Kyle Busch	18%
Jeff Gordon	15%
Jimmie Johnson	12%
Denny Hamlin	11%
Kurt Busch	11%
Jeff Burton	2%
Tony Stewart	2%
Carl Edwards	1%
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.	1%
Ryan Newman	1%
David Reutimann	1%
Elliott Sadler	0%
Clint Bowyer	0%
Kasey Kahne	0%

Denny Hamlin leads SAL rankings after 8 races

2009-04-20T11:46:00.001-04:00

Driver	SAL
Denny Hamlin	198
Matt Kenseth	150
Kyle Busch	140
Jeff Gordon	130
Kurt Busch	122
Greg Biffle	91
Mark Martin	74
Jimmie Johnson	72
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.	63
Jeff Burton	52
Carl Edwards	29
Elliott Sadler	25
Ryan Newman	24
Tony Stewart	18
David Reutimann	17

Recent Power Rankings

2009-04-20T11:34:00.005-04:00

We could base the recent power rankings simply on points in the last four races, and we'd get this result.

This is the same points earned since our first off-week after the fourth race.

(Before we get to that, also notice that Mark Martin is now 13th in points, just 9 points out of 12th. Didn't I predict that happening in my PPR article from last month?

And here you go, Total Points in Races 5-8

700	Jimmie Johnson	395	Martin Truex Jr.
651	Mark Martin	394	Casey Mears
632	Denny Hamlin	388	Reed Sorenson
617	Tony Stewart	381	Sam Hornish Jr.
608	Jeff Gordon	372	A.J. Allmendinger
556	Kurt Busch	371	Brian Vickers
539	Ryan Newman	365	Jamie McMurray
517	David Reutimann	358	Kevin Harvick
516	Jeff Burton	344	Michael Waltrip
512	Kyle Busch	341	Bobby Labonte
502	Juan Montoya	318	David Ragan
491	Kasey Kahne	307	Elliott Sadler
476	Carl Edwards	289	Joey Logano*
461	Clint Bowyer	253	John Andretti
450	Greg Biffle	250	David Gilliland
446	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	235	Robby Gordon
433	David Stremme	191	Scott Speed*
416	Marcos Ambrose	174	Aric Almirola
400	Matt Kenseth	149	Regan Smith
399	Paul Menard	109	Travis Kvapil

Points going into each offweek

2009-04-07T10:24:00.017-04:00

Coming up on our second off-week of the year, let's take a look at how different drivers fared. Remember after our first set of four races, the top in points were:

In the Second Set of consecutive races (Bristol, Martinsville, Texas) we saw these standings:

First 4 Races	Points	Per Race	Last 3 Races	Points	Per Race
Jeff Gordon	634	159	Jimmie Johnson	535	178
Clint Bowyer	591	148	Jeff Gordon	520	173
Kurt Busch	588	147	Denny Hamlin	482	161
Carl Edwards	547	137	Mark Martin	456	152
Matt Kenseth	546	137	Tony Stewart	442	147
Tony Stewart	521	130	Ryan Newman	419	140
Kyle Busch	514	129	Juan Montoya	411	137
Kevin Harvick	511	128	Kyle Busch	400	133
Kasey Kahne	484	121	Jeff Burton	398	133
Greg Biffle	480	120	Kurt Busch	386	129
Brian Vickers	477	119	Clint Bowyer	376	125

Let's see who made big improvements or declines in their PPRs from the first four races to the next set of three races. And which drivers have really lost a step since starting of well. Notice the 3 premier Roush cars in this bottom group:

Most Improved		Worst Deterioration
Mark Martin	81	Bobby Labonte	-14
Jimmie Johnson	64	Robby Gordon	-15
Ryan Newman	59	Kurt Busch	-18
Denny Hamlin	47	John Andretti	-20
Juan Montoya	35	David Ragan	-21
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.	24	Clint Bowyer	-22
Jeff Burton	23	Carl Edwards	-23
Tony Stewart	17	Michael Waltrip	-24
Joey Logano	17	Kevin Harvick	-25
Jeff Gordon	15	Brian Vickers	-41
Jamie McMurray	13	Matt Kenseth	-55
Paul Menard	12	Greg Biffle	-56

Short Track Points

2009-03-30T09:16:00.007-04:00

After 2 races this season, we can add up the total points of the Bristol and Martinsville races, to see a points ranking on the short tracks

360	Jimmie Johnson	203	Kevin Harvick
355	Denny Hamlin	196	Michael Waltrip
325	Jeff Gordon	191	Casey Mears
301	Mark Martin	186	Jamie McMurray
301	Ryan Newman	176	Paul Menard
286	Kyle Busch	173	Elliott Sadler
279	Clint Bowyer	164	David Ragan
277	Tony Stewart	161	Martin Truex, Jr.
265	Juan Pablo Montoya	158	Matt Kenseth
263	Dale Earnhardt, Jr.	143	Robby Gordon
261	Kasey Kahne	140	Brian Vickers
260	Jeff Burton	131	Sam Hornish, Jr.
255	Marcos Ambrose	130	Scott Speed
253	A.J. Allmendinger	125	Greg Biffle
239	Kurt Busch	119	John Andretti
235	David Reutimann	116	Joey Logano
217	Bobby Labonte	110	Aric Almirola
206	Reed Sorenson	110	David Gilliland
203	Carl Edwards	109	Travis Kvapil
203	David Stremme	80	Joe Nemechek

PPR and Getting into the Chase

2009-03-11T10:46:00.007-04:00

As a biased Mark Martin fan, I sometimes focus my statistics to try to rationalize his greatness in my head and find statistics that prove my points, despite any other factual results-based evidence that other people may point to.

I am not very concerned that he is 34th place in the standings. But Mark himself was talking about how he's not putting the Chase as a priority now. That's ridiculous! We've only had 4 races, and have 22 more to go before the Chase. Let me show you how easy it is going to be for him to make it in.

Looking back over the last few years, we see what the 12th place driver had in points after 26 races. And we look at Points Per Race (PPR) to see what that average was.

In the 2004-2008 chase years, the average number of points needed to be 12th by the 26th race was about 3088, or a Points Per Race of 118.77.

Year	Points	PPR
1997	2884	111
1998	2857	110
1999	2781	107
2000	2863	110
2001	2948	113
2002	3078	118
2003	3009	116
2004	3158	121
2005	2972	114
2006	3039	117
2007	3155	121
2008	3116	120

Look already after 4 races in the standings, David Reutimann is 12th in the rankings with 475 points, or a PPR 118.75 --> nearly exactly the average 12th place PPR required to make it.

Assuming this is an average year, then Mark needs to get back to 3088 points within next 22 races. So he needs to make 2802 points in the next 22 races, a required minimum of PPR 127.4 from here on out.

If he scores 128 PPR from here, he'll just barely qualify for the chase. Look at the path below:

Race	Points	Mark's PPR	Avg PPR pace	Behind
4	286	72	475	(189)
5	414	83	594	(180)
6	542	90	713	(171)
7	670	96	831	(161)
8	798	100	950	(152)
9	926	103	1069	(143)
10	1054	105	1188	(134)
11	1182	107	1306	(124)
12	1310	109	1425	(115)
13	1438	111	1544	(106)
14	1566	112	1663	(97)
15	1694	113	1781	(87)
16	1822	114	1900	(78)
17	1950	115	2019	(69)
18	2078	115	2138	(60)
19	2206	116	2256	(50)
20	2334	117	2375	(41)
21	2462	117	2494	(32)
22	2590	118	2613	(23)
23	2718	118	2731	(13)
24	2846	119	2850	(4)
25	2974	119	2969	5
26	3102	119	3088	15

If he scores 148 PPR (6.5 average finish) he'll be back in qualifying position about 7 races from now:

Race	Points	Mark's PPR	Avg PPR pace	Behind
4	286	72	475	(189)
5	434	87	594	(160)
6	582	97	713	(131)
7	730	104	831	(101)
8	878	110	950	(72)
9	1026	114	1069	(43)
10	1174	117	1188	(14)
11	1322	120	1306	16
12	1470	123	1425	45
13	1618	124	1544	74
14	1766	126	1663	104
15	1914	128	1781	133
16	2062	129	1900	162
17	2210	130	2019	191
18	2358	131	2138	221
19	2506	132	2256	250
20	2654	133	2375	279
21	2802	133	2494	308
22	2950	134	2613	338
23	3098	135	2731	367
24	3246	135	2850	396
25	3394	136	2969	425
26	3542	136	3088	455

And if he scores a 168 PPR (about a 2.5 average finish), he'll be back in the top 12 about 4 races from now:

Race	Points	Mark's PPR	Avg PPR pace	Behind
4	286	72	475	(189)
5	454	91	594	(140)
6	622	104	713	(91)
7	790	113	831	(41)
8	958	120	950	8
9	1126	125	1069	57
10	1294	129	1188	107
11	1462	133	1306	156
12	1630	136	1425	205
13	1798	138	1544	254
14	1966	140	1663	304
15	2134	142	1781	353
16	2302	144	1900	402
17	2470	145	2019	451
18	2638	147	2138	501
19	2806	148	2256	550
20	2974	149	2375	599
21	3142	150	2494	648
22	3310	150	2613	698
23	3478	151	2731	747
24	3646	152	2850	796
25	3814	153	2969	845
26	3982	153	3088	895

So if he can just start getting some top 5s and with bonus points, he'll be back in contention very shortly. And even if he just gets 127 points per race (12th place finish), he's still going to be fine. He's definitely not that out of it. I am still holding to my prediction that he will make the Chase this year.