Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

http://dirtracingreport.com/2016-knoxville-nationals-updates/

Your points are inaccurate...you can follow the point totals LIVE by uploading our Knoxville Raceway app or referring to our race story...thanks...

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I know this comes up every year, & obviously the people running Knoxville all these years know more than me, but...

IMHO, too much emphasis on Time Trials in point structure, it should be weighted more towards the racing

Example: among the Posse guys, Hodnett won his heat & was 5th in A-Main. Dietrich was 4th in heat & 12th in A-Main, but he's locked into Saturday Final already, based on better Time Trial. Hodnett still has to race his way in.

Dietrich lost 2 spots in the A & Hodnett was Hard Charger, passing 15 cars

Doesn't seem right

oops, Hodnett finished 6th, passed 14 cars

Same idea tho....

Poor Schatzy keeps getting passed for the lead. Cryin shame. Sometimes it's just not your year.

 
 
 
They don't even know how to spell sprint car 
much less chromoly...http://www.ycmco.com

What's not right is Hodnett timed in like he'd never raced a car in his life and got to start on the front row, let alone make the A main. If it were any normal race he would have started ROW 4 not ROW 1. In this day and age a 4 row invert is retarded especially when they dish up a one lane super highway half way up the track. freaking hell the track was that fast in the heats that My grandpa could have run the cushion and held on.

Wait a minute, I was completely messed up... top 16 from both nites lock into A-Main on Sat., not top 16 on EACH nite

oops...

Yea, invert of 8 makes it tough on the fast qualifiers, so I guess that makes up for the big points for qualifying...

Almost all the top qualifiers tonite had to run the B

They don't make it easy... how the hell does Schatz keep winning???

The format does not need changed - it's fine. 3 out of the top 5 qualifiers from Wednesday had no issue making the A and 4 out of 5 from Thursday did. The chances are there to make the points. Are some guys going to have bad luck? Yep. Are some guys going to have good luck? Yep. 

By and far the format rewards the guys who consistently perform throughout the night. I see some higher tier drivings making tongue in cheek jabs at the format on Twitter and have to question what they're thinking. Changing anything further is a mistake IMO. There are going to be gripes about any format (the current included) but I have to think the current is the best way to do it. You do have outliers (such as Jeff Swindell this year) but they are rare, and one of the unique and underrated things about the Nationals. Leave it alone.

Them heats were stacked tonight so that makes it tough to pick up 4 spots. I cant believe 452 points (Jeff Swindell) gets 16th.

Are you ready to put your money where your mouth is?

Member of this message board since 1997

Yea, I ponder this every year. Lots of variables, lots of cars, fairly complicated system

Like I said, people running the show know more than me....

Pretty simple actually......they've run this qualifying points system on Wed and Thurs how long?  And they used to invert 10 in the heats. Now take a look at the All Time Win List. See any slow pokes on that list, or a list of the greatest drivers there are and were? Leave the system alone! By the list it looks like it works!

Bill W-  quick question about the Friday night scenario...has any driver or team attempted / or are they even permitted to just turn up as a late entry and RACE FRIDAY without having run Wed or Thurs?

Lincoln 1845 ft/.35 mile T1=118MPH 
Eldora 2287 ft/.43mile T3=135MPH
Port 2716 ft/.51 mile T3=TBD
Grove 2792 ft/.53 mile T3=135MPH
Selinsgrove 2847 ft/.54 mile T1=136MPH
"I didn't move to PA from El Paso in search of better 
weather." Van May

Yeah it comes up every year. Way too many points for TT's. TT points should be on equal bill with heat race points, not equal billing with A feature points IMO. Hodnett wins his heat, 20th to 6th in the feature and he's firmly locked in the... C,  because of the first 2 laps racing the clock? Behind other drivers in points who did nothing but draw an early pill and put down a decent TT lap? It seems absurd to me that a tenth of a second in TT lap counts more than passing 14 cars in a feature with the cars as equal as they are nowadays. There's no perfect formula and I suppose this is one of the better ones. When you have so many good cars, it stands to reason that some of the best aren't gonna make the show. The good thing is that 4 cars will have chance to make the A from friday night. That was a great change to the format that Knoxville did a couple years ago.

A

When a majority of the 14 cars passed are typical B-Main cars this loses a lot of luster. 

Late pill argument doesn't hold water. There is a disadvantage going out later but Sammy (30th out, 2nd quick), Brown (45th out, 7th quick) and Dollansky (41st out, 8th quick) disproved that. 

And let's not exaggerate things here - a tenth in qualifying picks up two spots for Hodnett (four points). 

Would everyone clamoring for a format change prefer Knoxville to go Outlaw style? That sounds really exciting - let's change the qualifying points to 100 max and decrease by two but line the heat races up straight up and watch the fastest cars drive away. 

Again, there are things deserving change in this sport but the format at the Nationals is not one. 

The ONLY problem with the current Wed/Thurs qualifying format is the 8 car heat race invert.

The invert should be 10.

Putting the guys that timed 41-50 on the front row of the heat races held up the field enough that more of the fast timers transferred when they used to start 9-10.

The difference in speed between the cars that time 31-40 vs 41-50 is big.

But in order to do that, somehow the number of cars qualifying on each night needs to be addressed to get the field split more evenly to get 50+ cars on each night instead of 47 on Wed and 60 on Thurs.  Not sure what to do there but the car count should be able to be split more evenly than that.

Only other change I'd make to the qualifying nights is to run a few more laps for the B feature.    In a stacked race like last nights B 12 laps is not very long if you're starting further back than about row 4.    Going to 15 lap B's would be a good change.

Three things: 

1. Go back to full invert, but make the heats 12 laps, 2. 15 lap B-Main, 3. Anything that incentivizes drivers to not give max effort during TT's (I.E., reducing the points available) is a non-starter for the Knoxville Nationals.  

Reminder that races exist for our entertainment, not appeasement of driver's concerns. No reason to upset the best format in dirt racing because some traditionally fast cars struggled in TT's or didnt transfer out of a loaded heat race. 

Thats pretty much how I feel, tho I admit existing system has worked well over the years

Another question: How do they determine who qualifies Wed. & who qualifies Thursday?