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

I feel as if the points structure is very strange they reward qualifying so much but depending on your pill/ track conditions with your pill it could be really random and put you behind far in points. I think they should also have extra points for cars a driver passed during a race.  I haven't read the structure fully but let's say for example let's say Matt Moro he had a decent qualifying job but a bad a main and is still in front of balog who charged 8 positions.  Or Lucas wolfe 10th in points after blowing a motor in the feature placing 24th.  Hopefully I'm not the only one who doesn't see that qualifying a good time is more important than finishing good in the feature 

Here we go again. This comes up every year. The people who developed this system worked long & hard on it and applied it to many years of previous nationals. It was not just a random idea. And it has proven to work well for many, many years. It works, leave it alone.

With only about 50 cars to time trial per night the track at Knoxville seldom falls off very much.

And don't forget the year Steve Kinder went out 70th on Thursday night and set fast time!

I don't mind it but I think placing further up in the amain should get you more points rather than qualifying good but I agree knoxville barely goes away during qualifying 

I personally think the points system for the Nationals is the best there is.  I wouldn't change it at all. 

3 of the top 10 in qualifying ran their laps the last 11 cars (Stewart, Hodnett, McMahan). Given none of those cars are slouches. 10 of the final 24 also were in the top half of the qualifying (they were 24th fast or better). It's a little slanted usually but not near as bad as most people make it out to be if track prep is good.

The Knoxville track stays pretty darn consistant throughout qualifying. Looking back over the years, no matter the draw position, the best teams and drivers were always towards the top in qualifying. Kinser went out last one year when the track had "appeared" to drop off, and he set fast time. Sammy, Doug, Blaney, Jac, Bobby Davis Jr, just to name a few, seemed to always be able to go out and qualify well. And so does Schatz today. That's the beauty of the sprint car....adjustability. The knowledge to do so is what separates the top from the bottom, more so than draw position at Knoxville. Besides, what other points system makes all three aspects of sprint car events equally important....that being qualifying, heats and features? None that I know of.

Please do not change the point system or anything with the format. Came to Knoxville for the first time ever last night and have been very impressed with everything about this event so far. Felt the heats, b main, a main were great, the track was great all night. I think everything about the format is as fair as it can be and rewards performance at every phase of the night.

Couple quick points. To the people that are stating good system don't question it. Woo has recently moved away from qualifying points. Also explain how as system that is geared towards qualifying for a race allow this:

Driver A:

25th fast, finishes 2nd in heat and 8th in A. Passes a couple cars in heat and feature. Not locked into A

Driver B:

5th fast, finishes 5th in the same heat and then wins B and 10th in A. Locked into A.

So even though driver B finished worse in every similar race his qualifying locks him for A. That system is weighted pretty heavy on two laps that doesn't involve race conditions. Not saying it is wrong to reward qualifying but Heats and As should account for more.

No, because Dietrich started 4th in his heat and 11th in the A. Rico started 8th in his heat and 21st in the A. If you rewarded more points for the A you'd have everyone sandbag time trials which would kill the racing. 

We all know there's no perfect format, but Knoxville gets it right with the Nats. 

In saying you think Heats should be worth more, you're forgetting the invert.  If you want to say the Heats award more points, then IMO you'd have to line up Heats straight up by qualifying or maybe a 4 Invert.  But certainly not an 8.  That puts fast qualifiers at a disadvanatge (IF as you say you want Heats to be worth more points).  Qualifying sets the basis for the entire evening and how everything sets up from there.  The 8 Invert sets up awesome racing as fast qualifiers fight their way to the Top 4 to make the prelim night A.  Lots of battles go on all evening making for great racing by using the 8 Invert.  For that reason heats aren't worth as much, but make for some of the best racing.   

They do get points for passing last I knew. Isn't it 2 points per position advanced? Yes it's still weighted heavy on TT's but that's part of the game and it's the same for eveyone. 

A

Incorrect. Fast time gets 200 pts goes down by 2 points per position. Then Heat race win 100 pts down 3 points per position, A feature Winner gets 200 points down 2 points per position all the way back. This means max score is 500 pts. All points based on finishing positions.

If a person is already locked into the Sat A main why would they race the challenge cup race? Is there something to gain or do they just do it for their country or for the love of racing or testing and tuning or something else?

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Most bring a back up car and use it. No risk of hurting their best equipmen and they get to race for 10,000 I believe without the wear and tear of heats and qualifying. Surely there is something to learn on set up always so that doesn't hurt and lastly bragging rights!

No doubt its a good format, but that doesn't mean it can't be tweaked or improved. Even the US Constitution has been amended many times. Look at the cars, basically the same as 20 years ago, but minor changes have increased HP by 200 or so.

If heats are 100 pts. & A-Main 200, how about making TT worth 150? 

The TT top value of the points won't change a thing. Those timing in 20th....30th.....whatever would still face the same deficit. The other thing to keep in mind is this....aren't the top guys lining up in the feature pretty much year after year with the random pill draw? No points system should be configured to penalize the top teams and make it easier for the second tier teams to "sneak" in. The best in the nation should be the ones ultimately racing for the Nationals Championship! The teams that don't time as well get the advantage of the heat invert. The Nationals are set up to create the most intense racing of the year. It needs to be left alone.

The last World of Outlaw race I attended was back in 2002 at Husets (outside of the Knoxville Nationals if that counts), for the simple reason that it seemed the top guys would get to 4th in their heat and be content to ride it out and get the transfer and in the feature it seemed that no one wanted to push it to hard either.  From a business standpoint I get it, why take a chance on wrecking a car for a race that pays less than 10 grand?  However I paid in the neighborhood of $30 for a ticket, and for that I don't want to see cars content to finish anywhere than first.  I often get the itch to go to an outlaw race but I check the format first and in the last 15 years I haven't seen an outlaw format that I thought would make for good racing.

I agree that I don't like time trials being so heavy in the points structure.  But for a race fan, I want to see hard racing.  And the nationals format provides that.  I say leave it alone.

As a fan I like the format, because it makes the drivers race hard every time they hit the track!! If I were a driver might no think it's so cool!? It's the biggest race of the year and shouldn't be EZ to start up front! I've only missed one year since 1991, and like the format even better now that the Friday night format has changed to what it is now!! Thanks Knoxville raceway for another great Nationals!!!!

After reading through this thread I decided to take a scientific look into the theory of making qualifying less important in Knoxville's format by changing up how much each portion of the night was worth.  Using 2017's results I took the existing structure (200 points for qualifying, 100 points for heats, and 200 points for the A-Main) and compared it with 3 different versions.  150 quals./100 heats/200 Mains; 100 quals./150 heats/200 Mains; and 100 quals./100 heats/200 Mains.  Taking the top 30 point earners from each version, guess what happened?

All 4 lists are exactly the same!  So regardless of how you change up the weight for each portion you'll still end up with the same drivers in the same positions given a certain set of results in the Wednesday and Thursday preliminaries.  Knoxville's got the format the way it needs to be for the Nationals.  Any changes to the weight of each portion would be only for looks.

Signature here.

That's what I posted earlier....changing points values for the qualifying, heats or A Main won't change a thing except the totals.