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

I know we're early in the season but I am a bit surprised with the top ten. 

Top: Brad; not surprised, however after the initial win for Donnie, I thought he would be top 3

2. Macedo. 2 wins already with 8 top tens. This may be the biggest surpise to me. He's looked impressive in the JJR ride

3. Gravel I guessed him to be top 3. The top 3 right now is impressive and young

4. Sheldon. Good start to the season with 2 wins; consistency will dictate if he can remain in top 5

5. Gio; how long will this team stay on the tour given they're #5 in points

6. McFadden: I would of guessed him to be top 5; did this team remain the same despite the vinyl change? 

7. Donny; I think he's had some bad luck these past two weeks and would expect him to be top 4?

8. Logan; Was hoping this team would be top 5 but everyone in front of him is no slouch.

9. Cory Eliason; I didn't realize he's 9th in points; And someone else I don't think plan on running the full tour, like Gio

10. - 14: Spencer has looked good in a few races I've seen. Has Jacob qualified better this year ? Zearsfoss and Kraig are about where I guessed they'd be. 

This is all subjective and purely based upon the points and watching a few highlights and races. It would be interesting to see the results for these same guys 10 races in, at the same time last year. 

Keep It Real

Agree.  I don't think it will be easy to wrestle it from Sweet, but it is looking like the #2 is going to be tough to beat this year.  Spot on with Sheldon too.  He's like Larson but he eventually seems to make the mistake

The top 3 are about what I expected. Utlimately I think it comes down to Sweet & Gravel and I give Sweet the edge. We have seen him be streaky with his wins & droughts. When he wins its normally 3 out of 4 races at a time and even his winless droughts he is on the podium or in the top 5. That is hard to beat as we found out this weekend as Sweet has no wins & leads Macedo now with Gravel being over 30pts back even with multiple wins. Still within striking distance and I think both will get wins but have to battle adversity.

Macedo and Sheldon I think will improve even over their 2021 numbers but will still have a handful or more DNF's and with Sweet & Gravel being consistent that will be too much to overcome. 

Other drivers are about where I thought they would be aside from Donny being further back than I thought with some rough luck.

Is Gio in a position where they could just decide to follow the Woo all season and race for the championship and rookie awards and money?

I know he sits well in points right now. Most of those points have come ion short tracks in his state so has that familiarity skewed the big picture? I believe he has won at WG so he can win on the long tracks in the east.

What's you guess in what he would achieve if they chose to follow?

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

Donny has not been the same since Ricky Warner had  the health issues. 

Sheldon is always exciting to watch. He sometimes just doesn't look far enough ahead. Hummm, reminds me of a guy that drove a yellow, pennzoil #22.

Macedo is making a few take notice. Many thought that team wasn't going to survive.

Gravel and Sweet have all the right people in the right places. I think it comes down to which one of the 2 run into bad luck during the course of the season.

Logan S. Everybody wants to see this team do well

Jacob A.  Sure looks like he's faster,  I predict a couple of wins for this team this year.

Gio,  hummm, he still have the Toyota between the rails ?  I wonder if team Toyota keeps him out there. If so ? He will be one to watch.

McFadden and Zearfoss,  once the season moves back from the west coast I think they will start to show improvement 

I think those 10 guys will make the season really interesting this year. I don't see a clear cut breakaway by any one team. All these top teams have the equipment,  some just have a better support team behind them.

To win a WOO ftitle you must be consistent.Finishing in top 10 everynight and  doing well when the draw puts you up front.Gravel ans Sweet are the favorites so far Sheldon sentimental favorite and exciting Rico always crowd favorite. Larson always near or at front but real job is much better financialy.Schatz is still one of the best !

You can view detailed World of Outlaws stats on my page.

• As mentioned, Brad Sweet is Mr Consistant again, lowest average finish, most Top5s and Top 10s, 3rd best average TT, 2nd best average feature start
• Even though nly 10 races in, Logan Schuchart is struggling, and his average time trial is way down (2022-15.1, 2021-9.9, 2020-11.7, 2019011.0, 2018-10.6), resulting in a drop of average feature finish (2022-10.3, 2021-7.8, 2020-6.1, 2019-7.4, 2018-10.4)
• Jacob Allen has stepped up his Time Trial game, average Time Trial of 6.8 is 2nd best, only behind Davig Gravel's 6.1
• Not unusual that Sheldon Haudenschild (+49) and Logan Schuchart (+45) in PlusMinus, but Carson Macedo(+35) and James McFadden(+26) has been impressive too

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What does plus/minus mean?

Nothing too surprising...

Disappointed in Schuchart's perfomance, Jacob Allen getting better while Logan's "improvement curve" is going kinda flat

I'm something of a Ford guy in "real life", but I think its way past time for Schatz to go back to "Chevy style" engine. I can't believe he forgot how to drive or got too old...

Macedo is the up & coming guy & has a chance to win the Points title

Gravel - He does a real good job of taking what the race gives him and not wadding up cars until lately, and it hasn't been his fault. I believe points race will be between Gravel and Sweet in the end.

Sweet - Has an uncanny ability to not make much noise some nights and seems like an off night. But come the last 5 to 10 laps of the feature he is running on the podium.

Sheldon - He will piss away a few good points nights with crashes. He already changed the points race taking out the top 3 Friday night. 

Allen - He has turned into a time trialing machine. Seems like a driver who can lay down clean laps but doesn't race as well, but doesn't tear up equipment normally either. 

Gio - I have wondered if they will stay on the tour since they are 5th in points. Tour would be better with him running it.

Schuhart - Not really sure whats going on with him this year but is way off from what I expected.

Schatz - The domination is over. Will still have his nights but they will be harder to come by.

Not serious, but is Sweet already point racing.  Of course not.  Loves to be on the podium and usually makes it unless he has trouble.  In my opinion, Gravel and Macedo will battle Sweet for title.  

Lawlessness + liberalism = HELL -  NYC, Detroit, Chicago, 
Seattle, LA  Who the H runs those cities. 

Sweet struggles in qualifying compared to Gravel. But when he gets in the dash he seems like a sure bet for a podium. I think he passes more "good" cars than anyone other than Larson and he almost always finishes ahead of where he starts. 
 

Crazy that a 3 time and defending champ can be underrated but I think he is, including by me who just assumed it was someone else's turn this year, but it may not be.

Recency bias is a terrible thing. Okay not really, but does play a part in how we think. 

This is jumping really ahead but with Rico, and possibly Tyler Courtney jumping on the WOO next year, where do these guys stand? 

As good as they both are 8-10? 

Keep It Real

Gio can't run for the championship this year because he ran an All Star race in Florida.

This is probably the most accurate description of Sweet the past couple of years. Qualifying wise, not bad (seems like he is always between 7-12) but Gravel is usally in the top 5. Race wise we have seen Sweet start mid pack and end up in top 5, or podium, and in some instances win the race. Scary the fact in victory lane he mentioned that they are not quite where they want to be yet and really they have only had 1 bad race with a 16th place finish. 

I can see them being around maybe 6-8. I think one thing that may change a little is how we view the standings. For a couple of decades now drivers 6-10 have been considered at a different tiered. Capable of getting a win or two but title contenders. Over generalizing but many may have had the opinion that it was a "bad" season for drivers finishing 6-10. However now it could become that finishing 6-10 isn't really that bad since you could have 8/9drivers that have a legitiamate shot of winning any race. 

Agree.  In the "good ole days" of the 80's, drivers outside of the top 2 or 3 had no chance of winning a title most years-----contrary to this belief that the racing was somehow better back then.  I think back in the day, the drivers that finished 6-10 were so far off of the top cars, they weren't on the same planet.  Today, as you said, they are capable of winning races---even multiple races----and showing moments of greatness.   I think this is where Tyler and Rico will fall next year should they decide to run full-time WoO.  Sooooo many good cars, teams and drivers today.  Not just a few as in decades past.  (once again---contrary to popular belief)