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

I can understand that.  However for the first 5 years I went to the races, I had no idea how they lined up the features.  But I loved it, listening to the lineup was huge every night I went.  That's nearly 35 years ago now and I understand a lot of fans today don't like the not knowing.  But I guess I never found the passing point format real difficult to follow.  Not saying I could predict the perfect lineup but if a guy comes from the third row to win his heat, there's a good chance he's got the pole.  However in today's world, I can't understand why series or tracks don't make an app for your phone that everyone could easily see people's point totals in less than a minute after their heat.  If people don't like that, the track or series could put a "tweet" or "X" out (whatever the hell they're called these days) with a running total IF people care.  Personally, I'm just fine with hearing the lineup as the cars are being pushed off.  But as Murphy said is it really anymore difficult to follow with what's going on in other lineups?

I think a passing point system to line up the feature could be equitable for the racers and add some excitement. As you describe above, there could be an electronic way to keep track of the points through the heat races. Here's my rough idea of something I think would work. You'd need to play around with it a bit to get the right balance of things.

The Murphy lineup system: Let's say you have 32 cars.

* Luck plays a part in racing and there's no way to get around that. Everybody draws for position. Some will get lucky, some won't.

*Heat race points are awarded for 1) Finishing position and 2)Cars passed. Add those two together and that's your heat points.

*Give the two racers that drew the front row the option of starting in back. If they do, they also get some bonus points added on. The bonus points should be sufficient that a racer who opts to start in back and finishes say third, would have more heat points than the racer who won from the front row.

*Post those points on the marquee, online, whatever

*Heat two lines up the same way, but the points are just a bit higher, like 1 point. For example, if the first heat is won from the pole and the racer has 200 heat points, a racer doing the exact same thing would get 202. Third heat same, 204, etc.

* The increasing points would eliminate ties and give sort of a man on the bubble vibe until the heat races are done. 

*After the heats races are done, the A and B features are lined up by points-straight up.

Rather than just say this idea sucks because you don't like passing points, try looking at this from the fans point of view and from the drivers' & team's point of view. What are the good and bad aspects and how could it be improved?

Starters. These cars need starters. 

I like it.  Except the increasing points aspect.  I get your reasoning but I have two issus with it.  The first would be that I don't think it's "fair" that all heats don't give you the same potential points.  But if you wanted to do this I would do it the opposite for this reason.  I think we all agree the race track gets racier as the night goes on so since it would theoretically be easier to pass in the third heat vs. the 1st heat maybe you give the guys in the first heat the bonus.

After reading this thread, this would be my lineup system.

- First and foremost, Eliminate time trials.  I don't think most fans enjoy it, the ones that defend it see it as a "necessity" to "seed" who the "best driver" is (If you like time trials please explain why if I'm wrong).  But I don't think anyone really enjoys watching one car go around the track by themselves.

- Draw for heat starting position.

- Have a passing point format.  I liked the old Jackson format personally.  Ties are broken by draw number.

- Since I think most of us agree that most heat races are snoozers, lets try to help that.  Heat races would be 12 laps long but there would be a mandatory caution at lap 4 and 8.  Restarts would also be double file.  This would should help give more passing opportunities in heat races.

- Lineups would be set like this.  The top 16 cars would be locked into the A main.  Drivers who are in odd position of the top 16 in points (1st, 3rd, 5th etc) would be in the first dash lined up on points.  How you finish in this dash would set the inside row.  The same would be done the same for the 2nd dash, or outside row.

- Drivers in 17th 42nd in points would be in one of two B mains.  The first B main would contain the odd number guys in those point positions, top 4 would lineup on the tail of the A on the inside row.  The 2nd B main would be the same but with the even numbered points guys and then line up on the outside of the A.

-C, D, E features could be treated exactly like they are now.

- In the feature have an initial double wide restart and after that have single file restarts, WITH lapped cars in between the lead cars (I know it's kind of confusing for fans but it does reward something for having a big lead).  With outlaw restarts.

The current system is terrible for the fans, I'm not saying this is a perfect system but I think it adds some entertainment for the fans.  But as I've read on here it seems a fair amount of fans will pay $30 - $50 to sit for 3-4 hours through time trials, then heat races that most would agree aren't very entertaining, potentially a C and B feature, which don't really add a lot to the show.  All this to potentially be entertained for 7 and a half minutes or less if a feature would go green to checkered without a caution.  To add to what Murphy said in his last paragraph.  If you're an owner or driver, why wouldn't you like this format?  What would you change?

Exactly! Thats what I love about the Nationals, you get what you earn! I don't think the fast cars should be penalized for earning the pole in their heat or feature race!

Bull dung.  Pushing the cars to start them is part of the show.  I doubt you are a true sprint car fan.  Do not hold your breath for starters.

Hmmm.... but don't fast qualifiers get inverted by 6 in the heats?

You're talking Knoxville Nationals, right?

Brad-

Please do your level best to get the show on the road. If you advertise a 7:00 O'clock start, that's when folks are expecting it to start. If there are circumstances that make that difficult, like heavy rains the day before, start track prep earlier.

Insist that each track have twice as much farming equipment on hand than they usually do. That would cut the downtime in half.
 

You want the races over at a decent time-especially on a weeknight. Give the fans a chance to get to the pits afterwards and buy some merchandise.

Twice as much farming equipment? Maybe they can charge extra for a tractor rodeo just busting balls Murphy

Hmmm.... but don't fast qualifiers get inverted by 6 in the heats?

You're talking Knoxville Nationals, right?

Some years back, a local track reopened under new management. Their inaugural event was the kickoff for a new non-wing sprint car series being promoted by the track operators. Nothing went right. In the end, the ratio of farm equipment laps to sprint car laps was about two to one. To top it off, the track turned to dust during the actual races.

Boy I bet that was fun they shoulda hired Strawser.

At Knoxville they actually invert 8 in the heats...

OK, I was replying to this comment: "Exactly! Thats what I love about the Nationals, you get what you earn! I don't think the fast cars should be penalized for earning the pole in their heat or feature race!"

So the Nationals "penalize" fast cars even more than I thought...

I'm not really sure why so many people are looking at it as penalizing the fast cars, especially when so much is luck of the draw anyway.   That fastest car may not time well at Knoxville if they drew a bad number and had to go out late for time trials.  A good number of WoO features are won by somebody drawing a one or two out of the hat during their boring ass dash draw.   

I believe it was 2017 when Gravel had the perfect point night at Knoxville, which was only the 2nd time in history that had ever happened.   Take away the inversion and Gravel is at the head of a high speed freight train during that heat.   I'm glad I got to see the show he put on during that heat passing seven cars.   The last time I took a friend to the races one of his first comments after noting how fast the cars were was "they don't seem to compete for position very much though".   That was after watching the 2nd freight train heat race without a single pass.    

I'd say that most of us on Hoseheads believe that Brad Sweet and Kyle Larson read posts on here. This post & thread is aimed directly at them. 

Brad- for the betterment of High Limit Racing, and to find out what your fans and potential fans think of your program, set up some sort of official suggestion box. I know, you have a corporate e-mail somewhere that I can send info to where it will sink to the bottom of someone's inbox and never be seen. I'm thinking of something a lot more specific and useful. You could set it up and provide links on racing sites, or work directly with a racing site like Hoseheads. 

Here's the plan-
Submitters will be asked to suggest one idea at a time. Expand on that idea all you want, but stick to one subject. Anything that reads like a manifesto won't get read by anybody anyway. Encourage people who have opinions or ideas on a dozen aspects of HL to submit a dozen seperate, specific e-mails. This will alow you to have someone sort all the ideas into like piles. It will make it easier to see trends and to cull out the crazies. 
I look forward to seeing soemthing soon.
-Thanks

Try what Kyle said, put starters in the cars.

I went to a Late model track where MOWA was running and all I heard the regulars complain about was having to wait for push trucks start all the cars after a red .

Try what Kyle said, put starters in the cars.

I went to a Late model track where MOWA was running and all I heard the regulars complain about was having to wait for push trucks start all the cars after a red .