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

I have updated my 410 Driver ratings.  This time, I set it to a minimum of 15 races run, so I can have a "Top 100".  I have also included a full drivers list, races list, and lists of information I am still trying to find, like results and purses.

Driver Ratings

Justin Henderson at 21 has to be a joke.

With only 17 races ran its probably hard for him to rate extremely high with the formula. But I agree he is a top driver. 4 wins in 17 410 races is doing pretty good unless we are going by the Donny standard.

Kerry madsen 6th. Lil high I think....Brent marks 22? Im from pa and thats crazy.  I like this though. 

Actually I see it the opposite way you do.  I think he's rated too high.  I'm not trying to take anything away from Justin, he is a great driver.  But even with his high win % I think he's rated too high since he's only been in 17 races, the majority of which have been at Knoxville.  Compare him to Dobmeier, who is ranked 31st.  Dobs has 9 wins in 41 races so has an almost identical win % to Henderson. But Dob has raced at multiple tracks and won at multiple tracks - which shows versatility.  Henderson being ranked above Dobmeier is a joke, but the only reason Henderson is ranked that high is because of his small sample of races and his good performance at one track (especially during Nationals).

Another driver comparable to Henderson is S Swindell - having ran 24 races with ZERO wins - yet is ranked 14th.

The system isn't perfect but it's still a cool list to compare drivers with.

Kinda seems to me BillV99 hit the nail on the head then, didn't he?  Debate on where a driver SHOULD sit in the rankings--cleared up by where he DOES sit in the rankings. 

Henderson is a perfect example--4 wins in 17 races.  Great percentage but only 17 starts.  Let's say a 360 regular slaps a 410 in the car for a local WOO show and wins.  If that is his only 410 race of the year so far, does he become the greatest 410 driver in the country?  I would say no--even though his winning percentage is 100%. 

Remember, every person in the world that has gone bowling has tied the world's record for most pins knocked down in one roll--10!  I think Bill's formula will force someone who has run 17  410 races to run a bigger sample size in order to prove that he can constantly throw strikes.  Is that about right Bill?

(BTW--I don't disagree that Justin could be way up the list--but he's not)

Amazing figures!

Look at his list of compiled drivers and races, also his missing data links at the tp, surely we can help encourage him by providing him this data.

My only suggesiton is to drop the lime green, seems a bit hard to read, can you stick with a simple black and white, maybe color every other line, so one can read acorss the page and retain the same line?

This is indeed fun to compare and congest, keep it up Bill V99.

You provide a poor arguement.  How many of those 9 wins that Dobs has have been cherry picking in Grand Forks?  If you were to throw in an equation that ranked stiffness of competition in these races Dobs would be much lower and Henderson would move forward.  And just for the record, Henderson didn't make the A-main at the Nationals so citing his performance at the Nationals as you did, is an invalid comment also.

Not qualifying for the biggest race of the year (which happens to be at your home track) shouldn't count?

Remember, these are 'computer' rankings based solely on numbers.  No forumla would be perfect, and there's always going to be drivers that maybe don't belong where they are.

Yes, Justin Henderson has only run 17 races, and only once outside of Knoxville.  But his finishes of the races he did run are very good, and hes done very well in highly rated races...11th (out of 80) at Knoxville on Sunday before Nationals, 5th Prelim night, 28th (out of 107) at Nationals, NSL win.

What helps Brent Marks, is he's run alot of races, and did well in a majoity of them.  He qualified for the 2 'major' races, the Kings Royal and Knoxville Nationals.  Other resultsn of highly rated races that helps his ranking...2nd with All-Stars at Port Royal, 6th with All Stars at Lincoln, 8th with Outlaws at Williams Grove, 10th with Outlaws at Eldora on knight before Kings Royal.

I would hardly call Dobs racing in Grand Forks cherry picking.  He lives there. Is he just supposed to park his car for the night and not race there on Fridays?  What would you do if you were him? He has actually only attended about half the races there this year because he does get out on the road to race if the NSL is competing somewhere on a Friday night.  If it was cherry picking, he would stay in GF and race EVERY Friday night there.  So he has about 4-5 wins there this year, rather than 10.

As far as competition goes, Henderson has raced at Knoxville and won there 4 times. Yes Knoxville has the stiffest competition on a weekly basis.  However, it very arguable that Dobs has been racing in more difficult competition than Henderson since he's raced about 15 times with the NSL, which has included trips to Knoxville. And to say Henderson didn't do well at the Nationals this year is very questionable - I think taking 5th in the A on his qualifying night, then taking 7th in the B main on Sat is pretty respectable. Not making the Nationals A main doesn't mean he performed poorly. The difference is Dobmeier shows much more versatility than Henderson over the course of the racing season, being successful at multiple tracks vs just 1.

My point wasn't to make this about Dobmeier, it was just to show a comparison.  You could make the same comparison using Montieth instead of Dobs.

If drivers make 40%, tough way to make a living.

I should have been more clear what I meant was Henderson is ranked way to high.

Logan Schuchart at #38 is a joke......there are several drivers below him with wins and they should be ranked higher than Logan. I won't buy the arguement that his record is based on the stiffness of his competition. Yea, he runs the WoO but usually in the "B" when there is any kind of feild of cars, and makes the "A" on those nights when there is a short feild of 24 and less. Considering there are only 13 WoO drivers and Logan is in the "B" quite often, tells me that there are many local drivers that have out performed him at WoO shows. So much for the stiffness of his WoO competition. He doesn't compete with them, he competes with the invaders. As for his money earned, that's only because of the large number of events that the WoO's race. Has nothing to do with how he should be ranked!

blazer00...Again, these ranking are based on numbers only.  Do I think Logan Schuchart is the 38th best driver in the country, I probably wouldn't agree with that.  We can go up and down this whole list and disagree with a lot of it.  But like I have in a previous post, I will explain why he is where he is.

Sure, maybe it's alittle unfair because his total money and competition is high only because he runs the Outlaw tour, but on the other hand, there should be some reward for running against the best every night.  But his numbers are not solely based on that.  If they were, Jacob Allen would be on the list, but he didn't even rank in the top 100.  The difference between those 2.  Logan has finished a total of 1115 (of 2372 total cars), where Jocobs is 1658.  That's a big difference of average finish, and why Logan gains more points.

Also, if you look at #35, Kraig Kinser, you can argue hes not better.  Logan has the same amount of top 5s with the Outlaws, and much more top 10s (21 to 13).  That again helps Logans numbers.

If your complaing about Logan why not complain about Kraig Kinser who is ranked higher  ?

If nothing more than for the compilation of starts, wins and approximate money earned, this is a great piece of work.

It gives us a lot of things to debate and hopefully you'll continue putting this together.

I actually assumed that's what you meant from your original post - But thanks for the clarification and I couldn't agree more with you!

And your obviously a Dobmier backer to the death which may have something to do with why you think Henderson is ranked too high, which is fine as we are all entitled to our own opinion.  Henderson runs against a tougher field of cars weeek in and week out and puts up the results to justify his ranking. 

Good explanation.  Keep up the good work bill