1080 replies to this topic

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Any theories as to what is the secret to top 4 performance at the last race?  Do they get special tires?  Does NASCAR determine who the worthy champion is before the race, and absent earlier elimination or last race mishap, everyone is asked to respect the predetermined race result?  It's hard to come up with an explanation that wouldn't be an implausible conspiracy, but these results are just as implausible.

[eibyyz]

Any theories as to what is the secret to top 4 performance at the last race?  Do they get special tires?  Does NASCAR determine who the worthy champion is before the race, and absent earlier elimination or last race mishap, everyone is asked to respect the predetermined race result?  It's hard to come up with an explanation that wouldn't be an implausible conspiracy, but these results are just as implausible.

 

Preparation and data mining.  I bet that every team--including McDowell, Kurt Busch and Reddick--started planning for the final 10 tracks the second they made it into the postseason.  If you have four cars (not to mention alliances), that's a lot of data on those ten tracks at hand.  Not to mention that the manufacturers encouraged a certain level of data sharing between cars in a particular marque.  This is why McDowell and Reddick fell out after the first cut--lack of data, comparatively.  Much is made of the F1 'back offices' running numbers 24 hours a day--NA$CAR isn't that far behind them, I'd wager.

 

It's no surprise that Gibbs and Hendrick made it to the final 4.  Data, data, data.  It would not have been too much of a surprise if Haas or Penske would have gotten two cars in the final, either.

Edited by eibyyz, 08 November 2021 - 19:14.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Preparation and data mining.  I bet that every team--including McDowell, Kurt Busch and Reddick--started planning for the final 10 tracks the second they made it into the postseason.  If you have four cars (not to mention alliances), that's a lot of data on those ten tracks at hand.  Not to mention that the manufacturers encouraged a certain level of data sharing between cars in a particular marque.  This is why McDowell and Reddick fell out after the first cut--lack of data, comparatively.  Much is made of the F1 'back offices' running numbers 24 hours a day--NA$CAR isn't that far behind them, I'd wager.

 

It's no surprise that Gibbs and Hendrick made it to the final 4.  Data, data, data.  It would not have been too much of a surprise if Haas or Penske would have gotten two cars in the final, either.

I mean how does it happen that the four championship contenders just happen to run in top 4 of the final race with such a frequency?  Data mining can do a lot, but it can't eliminate uncertainty to such an extent, and some of the teams that didn't make it to the top four presumably do the same thing that the championship four do.

[racinggeek]

I mean how does it happen that the four championship contenders just happen to run in top 4 of the final race with such a frequency?  Data mining can do a lot, but it can't eliminate uncertainty to such an extent, and some of the teams that didn't make it to the top four presumably do the same thing that the championship four do.

 

Dmitiry, Dmitiry, you're not implying that the final four championship cars each season might be allowed by NASCAR to gain an, ahem, Unfair Advantage, are you?     

 

It is rather curious and I've wondered about it myself, and I've been watching NASCAR on at least a part-time basis since the 1970s. Remember, when NASCAR started this playoff system but did it by a points system throughout the length of the 10 races that made up the playoffs, many times the eventual champion had a decent points lead heading into the finale and just stroked through that race, or wasn't very good in the finale but it didn't matter anyway. It is interesting that in recent years the four contenders in the finale, if not THE top four in the race, almost always are among the top five or six throughout.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I just assumed everyone sorta gets out of the way. They don't even need to be told, they understand how it works.

[SKL]

Have been slowly getting more interested in the tintops lately.  Went with some friends to both the Xinity and Cup finals this weekend and really enjoyed it.  Had great access to cars etc. and even walked out on the banking before the race to listen to the Dierks Bentley concert  (yeah I like country music)...

 

Those cars are booking it into turn 3!!  (though a LOT slower than the indycars- sure miss them not coming here anymore)

 

Just finished cleaning a 3" layer of dust off the truck after parking there for two days!!

[eibyyz]

I just assumed everyone sorta gets out of the way. They don't even need to be told, they understand how it works.

 

They don't want a replay of Atlanta 1992.  That was to be Davey Allison's coronation but for Ernie Irvan spinning in front of him.

[racinggeek]

Truex is great. He actually rises above the stupidity and stubbornly refuses to get involved in any of it.

As I’ve got more into it I’ve been drawn to Truex (especially in his Furniture Row days because I loved that team - Colorado being one of the few places in the States where I’ve been and every other team being from North Carolina seemingly) and DiBenedetto. Although any driver who voiced support for Trump immediately got blacklisted, so that’s like everyone bar Keselowski, so him.

 

Not only that, but Truex is a great redemption story. Don't forget, he won two straight Busch/Nationwide/Xfinity/YourNameHere championships and one Cup race each for a then-fading Earnhardt team and the so-so Mikey Waltrip team before basically given up on until hooked up with Furniture Row. He paid his dues and then some and came back from adversity. Add in the situation with his Significant Other, and I don't know how one can't pull for him.

[OvDrone]

I am finally sick of the format. It is so unnatural and I feel embarrassed for giving the whole season so much of my time and energy. I am drained - think of the teams and drivers. Unholy. 

[messy]

Any theories as to what is the secret to top 4 performance at the last race?  Do they get special tires?  Does NASCAR determine who the worthy champion is before the race, and absent earlier elimination or last race mishap, everyone is asked to respect the predetermined race result?  It's hard to come up with an explanation that wouldn't be an implausible conspiracy, but these results are just as implausible.

There’s clearly something going on with it because it happens every year and it’s utterly implausible. The really great thing about NASCAR in my book is that depending on the track, the strategies, the timing of the yellows and just the way the competitive order changes naturally over such a long season, the guy sitting 24th in the points can pop up with a win at any stage of the season. Erm, except the last race, where the Championship Four will invariably finish 1-2-3-4. Don’t ask why. So people don’t. And it goes on. And I’m scouring Reddit to try and work out why more people don’t ask about that - am I just being dense because I’m British and not in the know? I’m just so glad to see people actually questioning it this year. But I doubt it’ll ever be answered, just another thing that threatens to turn what I actually think is a fascinating, underrated and exciting series in the main, into the kind of joke people always accuse it of being.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

I just assumed everyone sorta gets out of the way. They don't even need to be told, they understand how it works.

I have no doubt that everyone else gets out of the way if they are in the way, but in order to be in the way the car behind you has to be faster. 

 

What if one of the championship four cars has a 10th place pace?  On any given weekend, you'd think at least one of them would.  How do you get out of the way in order to shuffle them forward to fourth place?  At least half a dozen cars need to not just get out of the way, but also sandbag afterwards for the rest of the race so that they won't get back on the tail of one of the chosen ones.  That seems a little hard to choreograph as long as the spoilers still feel like fighting for position among themselves.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Didn't we go through this that year at Homestead that Edwards and Stewart were always 1-2 within a few laps of any restart?

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Didn't we go through this that year at Homestead that Edwards and Stewart were always 1-2 within a few laps of any restart?

We go through this almost every year, that's precisely the problem.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I think a subtle understanding across the grid is easier and less risky than letting certain cars have a different result at tech inspection. NASCAR's vibe has always been Southern Small Town Sheriff rather than respecting the rule of law. 

[John B]

Looked like Brad in 2015 and Larson the following year let contenders through at the end to win (the latter could well have been helping fellow Chevy driver Johnson). Plus Larson didn't pursue a win at least one other occasion at Homestead when it looked like he had the car to beat.

Gordon in 2015 was one final 4 car that didn't run well, but he was lucky to be there in the first place.

It's another awkward element of the system; in a true playoff contenders would be head to head without the rest of the field involved.

Edited by John B, 09 November 2021 - 03:20.

[PayasYouRace]

They don't want a replay of Atlanta 1992. That was to be Davey Allison's coronation but for Ernie Irvan spinning in front of him.

I thought Atlanta 92 was the gold standard for a NASCAR finale and they’ve been trying to recreate it ever since.

[Risil]

I thought Atlanta 92 was the gold standard for a NASCAR finale and they’ve been trying to recreate it ever since.

 

Yeah but memories blur with time, right? You remember the ideal of championship contenders fighting it out at the last race, not the messiness of how it actually transpired and who needed to do what.

 

In any case I watched the first NASCAR playoff final purely in the hope that Ryan Newman would win it, and haven't really thought about NASCAR, apart from the Daytona 500, since. That's partly a result of my life priorities changing but the change in no way spurred my interest.

 

Sanctioning bodies have less meaningful control over how good the racing is than we often assume. They can change everything except what's important. They can do good work with increasing access to the sport, marketing the drivers, highlighting the drama and improving participation from teams and sponsors -- and obviously the technical rulebook invisibly controls everything -- but if it were up to me I'd leave the rules of racing as simple as possible.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

In my opinion, it isn't as simple as leaving things as simple as possible.  Technology of all kinds marches forward, and the ultimate destination of a technology is to remove all kinds of uncertainties.  Removing uncertainty is good when you're in the car manufacturing business, as you don't want some cars to be lemons for random reasons, but it's bad for racing, since a sport has to be uncertain to some extent (but not completely). 

 

If you let technology march forward unimpeded, which is what happens when rules are kept simple, then eventually teams will figure out how to get to the finish line in the most orderly procession possible.  That's why all racing series fiddle with the rules to get the right level of uncertainty, but NASCAR completely went off the deep end due to never appreciating the sporting legitimacy part of the equation.

[Risil]

I think we agree -- I'm not saying you should leave the technical rulebook alone or we'd have laser guided, computer controlled jet cars by now (we probably wouldn't but you know what I mean). Trying to manage the engineering side and keep the technical competition healthy is one of the really hard jobs that series organizers have to get on with.

 

But I do want race and championship formats to be as simple as possible. 

[Ross Stonefeld]

If you're talking about championship formats, NASCAR management(the new era suits, not the Mike Helton's of the paddock) always gave off the energy of being obsessed with being seen as a serious sport. Not in a credibility sense, but they wanted to be able to hang out with NFL owners and league commissioners and etc. So they thought if they had playoffs like other sports, they would be taken seriously like other sports. 

[Risil]

Well I do sympathize with how hard it is to make motor racing season come to a natural crescendo at the end of the season. Quite often you know enough by about halfway through which way the championship is going to go, much like with a chess game between two really good players.

 

I think a better model would be something like England's Premier League, where interest is driven by fan loyalties, specific rivalries, competing for entry into exclusive events -- or to stay in the league -- and the fact that at least in individual matches anyone can beat anyone else. No one minds that the title chase only goes to the final day about once every ten years, and even then the drama is the product of two distinct matches taking place at the same time in different ends of the country. But as you say, possibly not on the NASCAR execs' cultural radar.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I don't even think you can import that to American 1v1 league sports, nevermind trying to cram it into motorsport. 

[Risil]

It's sort of already similar, right? Each entrant takes part in a set number of races, and you use a simple points system to add up the results over the season to determine a champion. That's how European soccer works and it's how NASCAR worked before 2004 as well. You rely on the strength and unpredictability of individual races -- and the fact that the sport has many different teams and personalities for fans to get behind -- to generate interest, rather than arbitrarily eliminating some from competition. Have an invitational for race winners only or the championship top 15 at the end of the year with an absurd amount of prize money if you want to keep interest up in the last quarter of the season.

 

I'd love to see promotion and relegation between NASCAR's divisions but I don't know how it would work. It just seems more doable there than in F1 which is essentially a different sport to F2/F3.

 

All knockout formats have the same flaw, which is that there is no interest between the point when your team is knocked out and the semi-final stage when teams can smell victory and something momentous might happen.

[jonpollak]

https://youtu.be/SQ7AaiGEAaA?t=223

Jp

[Mila]

Talk about awesomeness!

 

[markpenske]

Dmitiry, Dmitiry, you're not implying that the final four championship cars each season might be allowed by NASCAR to gain an, ahem, Unfair Advantage, are you?     

 

 

I remember Robin Miller used the term "The Call"

[Alan Lewis]

I've also posted this in the "Mentioned in passing" thread in TNF, but I guess there are a few here who will remember him...

https://en.wikipedia...ki/Delma_Cowart

I'm nowhere near enough of a stock car follower to have heard of him before today but he sounds like he was a bit of a character.

[jonpollak]

And he died today… !!!!!
Jp

[eibyyz]

Might as well put this here...Kyle Larson is keen on trying a F1 car whilst on vacay in Abu Dhabi for the GeePee.  I hope it happens, obvs...

 

(Hendrick + Chevrolet + 200M USD...)

[Myrvold]

Might as well put this here...Kyle Larson is keen on trying a F1 car whilst on vacay in Abu Dhabi for the GeePee.  I hope it happens, obvs...

 

(Hendrick + Chevrolet + 200M USD...)

 

 

What rules goes for Young Driver Test? Previously SL holder/Free Practice SL holder and/or enough SL points for a FPSL?

If latter, that rules out Larson regardless of PR win.

[Ross Stonefeld]

He didn't even know there was a test, I think it's safe to say he's not really prepared for it.