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

from a reliable source ....in the neighborhood of 3 million per year. Or about 100K per race 

Yes and It costs a 410 sprint car team 1,500 to 2,000 a night.  We wanna know motor cost.

I'd agree about the stages being fun but now creating staged drama and the system being junk now. But I do think it was perfect the way it was before or as close as you could get. Yes you had a few outliers here or there where the champion won fewer races than others but I think consistency should be factored in heavily when it comes to racing. Plus the system was based on simple basic math where the higher you finished in a race the more points you got. Add up at the end of the season and who had the most won the title. They even had it to where you got more points if you won or finished in the top 5 and the gaps were a little bit bigger the higher you finished. You could get bonus points if you lead a lap and more points if you lead the most to reward you for dominating.

The hard part or not so hard part of the whole system was trying to explain to people how a guy with fewer wins won a championship over someone with more wins. In the Kenseth and Newman case it is simple, when Newman wasn't winning he was wrecking out of the race or blowing up. He had more wins but he also had more 30 and below finishes than most drivers in the top 5 that year. I think he may have had 9DNF's that year which is a quarter of the races so if you can't finish 25% of the races you probably don't deserve to be champion. That's when Penske whined and cried about the system and they ended up changing it and now we have the stupidity that we have now. That and Nascar wanting to be stupid and wanting to compete with the NFL in the fall.

Labonte's case is a little more intriging as I will have to look up the stats on that year but if memory serves me correct, I believe when Gordon was winning Labonte was finishing right behind him. So Gordon wasn't putting up a big point gap in the races he won typically but I would be interested to see how many DNF's each had and where they finished throughout the year.

Johnson's titles frustrate me. For one under the old system he does not win 5 straight and I don't think he wins 3 straight. Don't get me wrong great driver and will go down as one of the best but the 5 straight just turned me off. Especially the years going into the "playoffs" he was 6th or 7th and several hundred points behind the leader.

Heres where I differ. I believe the point gap per position should be very close. Husets point system for example, 2009 Jody won 4 races and hardly finished outside the top 5, only had a 50 or so point lead going into championship night and had a throttle linkage break causing him to not start the feature. Dusty Ballenger was second in points, won the race and finished second in points by 2 pts. That one race almost cost the championship. I believe thats how it should be. I dont believe in points gaps that will get people hundreds of points ahead and allow for multiple bad finishes or DNFs. 1 point lost per position, force these guys to run top 5 every week, and if they don't, or dont finish, they are, don't really wanna say penalized, but penalized for bad finishes. Championships should be rewarded by consistent good finishes. A guy that wins 8 and finishes outside the top 10 twice as much shouldnt beat they guy whos consistently in the top 5 with no wins.

That actually would probably work better since you are still rewarding the higher finisher. Only thing is it would require having smart officals and managers to come up with the point system and the word smart and Nascar really do not go well together since about the year 2000. I am in favor for anything other than the stupid playoff system they have now. It makes no sense to have playoffs in a sport in which the competitors compete against each other week after week on the same tracks. Its not like football basketball baseball or hockey where you can only have 2 of the 30something teams compete at the sametime. I believe the work manufactured excitment has been used to describe Nascar now instead of natural excitment.

Good points.  

However, the Kenseth/Newman (who I cannot stand by the way---so not a biased opinion) controversy is the perfect example to me of how the old system was flawed.  Ask any driver in the garage that year who they thought they had to beat at any given track...Newman or Kenseth?  Only a fool would say Kenseth.   Newman was winning at a pace not seen since the Jeff Gordon years of 1995-1998.  Speaking of Gordon, ask Dale Sr. or Mark Martin who they had to beat when they showed up on any given weekend in 1996.  I would guarantee Jeff Gordon was the answer.   

At the end of the day, the guy everyone says you have to beat, should be the champion.  Not the guy who finished most consistently.  This year?  You had to beat Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson...in that order.  Why they're not both racing for the championship Sunday is beyond me.  That's whats wrong with the system.  And, Chase Elliott finished 1 spot out of being in that conversation for some reason.  

If you weight the wins heavy, followed by generous points in the top 5, followed by no points after the top 10, the complexity of the points race changes.  You wanna have a playoffs?  Fine.  No one makes it without a win.  Period.  Might as well give participation ribbons.  You wanna advance to the next round?  Fine.  When you match or surpase the win total of the guy you're eliminating, fine.  This 12th placing our way into the final 8, along with aero push, is killing Nascar.

Agree with almost all of your points. From 1995 till about 2002 Jeff Gordon was probably the favorite going into each race. I remember every race going please anyone but Gordon (still have respect for him and probably one of the top 3 of all time in Nascar). However the point that I would slightly and respectfully disagree with you is who everyone says you have to beat being the champion because that would be a matter of opinion and subjective. Obviously Gordon ran up front every race but at the end of the day it is where you finish as is with all sports. Patriots went 16-0 but were they the super bowl champs that year? No because they lost 1 game to a team that had lost 7 or 8 that season. How many times have we seen a driver lead a majority of the race only to have problems and not finish a race. To me every position matters and the higher the better.

I did a little research about the 96 season and just compared Gordon and Labonte simply by the differences in finishing position for simplicity sake. Positive is number of positions that Labonte finished ahead, negative Gordon ahead of Labonte. As the season goes on Labonte finishes 39 positions ahead of Gordon. Definately not the sexy or prettiest way to win the title I will agree but effective and only 1 of a few times during the old system where the Champion had a significant difference between the guy with the most wins. The year with Kenseth is even biffer of a gap, 139 spots.

Agree that wins and higher finishes should be weighed more than lower spots but I think the old system gave us a truer champion than what we currently have. To me the two drivers this year have been Truex and until recently Larson. The fact that 3 other drivers even have an opportunity to win the title over Truex makes me sick. He has the wins and the finishes and under the old system would already be the champion most likely and should be. A playoff system is just dumb in my opinion when competing against the same guys at the same time each week.

This is interesting to read.  Lots of good points.  The only thing I would disagree with people on is saying who would have won a championship under the old system.  Other than this playoff garbage where one race determines a champion, I really can't argue that any of these people wouldn't have been champions (Other than Kurt Busch the first year).  The drivers were racing different because of the system, they would have raced different under the old system.  Jimmy Johnson might not have scored the most points throughout the years they won but they raced the system.  Just going from memory it seems like Johnson would always go into a summertime slump.  I think (I don't know obviously) that they would get pretty well locked into the chase and then save their good stuff for the chase, which makes sense, what was the point in gaining a bunch of points in the summer only to have them taken away when the chase started?  Every year it seemed like somebody would get a big points lead in the summer and then they rarely won the championship, I have to wonder if that played into it.

In my opinion it's pretty sad that this is the hottest topic in NASCAR.  If you want to compare NASCAR to the NFL (Who NASCAR is trying to compete with and emulate), they have a basic playoff system that's easy to follow.  Everyone understands it and it's rarely criticized.  It hasn't been changed in 25 or 30 years.  But the reason the NFL is so much more popular right now is they have a good product on TV, the majority of games are pretty close and entertaining.  There will be some blowouts but that's just what happens sometimes.  With NASCAR the most exciting thing is this "manufactured" close championship.  But the racing is not the greatest right now.

Kyle Larson struggles? Larson had a breakout year in NASCAR with a team that had limited success in the past, and he had a world class year in the sprint cars running a very limited schedule. Carrying a car to 2nd at Knoxville is pretty amazing nowadays. It seems if there is a cushion he has a shot. A 25 year old racing a 25 year veteran like Saldana out of a job in a backup car also sticks out. You guys are dreaming if you think he is struggling. The only struggle Larson has ever had in his young life is at Williams Grove.

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

Agree completely.   I think Jimmie would still be a 7 time champ even if the point system had never changed.   Once they were pretty well locked into the chase I think they used the remaining races to test and expirement until the chase actually started.   One thing's for sure, once the chase started they knew how to turn it on and dominate which tells me they would have been the champion regardless of the point system.   

BS on Johnson having all those titles under the old system! Gordon damn near had at least two of them and maybe three locked in under the old system going in to the last ten races. And using the old point system during the "playoffs" as a continution of the season, I believe the record shows that Gordon would have won three more titles and Johnson three less. If NASCAR wants to rejuvinate their program they need to eliminate the "playoffs". Instead, split the season in to 6 segements of races, and each team gets to drop their worst outing from the points count in each segement. That will tighten up the points dramatically, and eliminate bad luck from the equation....like a wreck or a mechanical failure. A driver who has had no bad luck may be forced to relenquish points from say a 14th place finish, while another who lost an engine for example may eliminate the points from a 33rd place finish. Allow teams to eliminate six bad outings a season, and you have a tight ponts system based on a season of all out racing. That system would make things very interesting.

You can call BS on whatever you like and I'll call BS on what you said too.   You're assuming that nothing would have changed in the way Johnson and Knaus approached races under the old system and that the results of each race would have been exactly the same.  No way anyone can just assume that and say Johnson's championships weren't legit.   Sorry, but Gordon was not the dominant team by the time Johnson got rolling.   His day had passed already.    I'm not a Johnson fan, but he and Knause were clearly the class of the field and he would still be a 7 time champ either way.    Personally I hope he wins #8 just so I can hear all of the Earnhardt fans whine about it.   

So your saying that the 48 team (in part owned by Gordon) did what......coasted and experimented during the "regular season" and that winning races wasn't a priority for them? That's a hell of a laugh. If memory serves me correctly, and if you look back at the first few years or so, I believe Gordon had a comfortable lead in the points at least twice at the end of the "regular season", and Johnson wouldn't have closed the gaps and overtaken Gordon under the old system based on the results of the "playoffs". I think those facts are available somewhere. Also, if I remember right, that was also brought up by competitors and sports writers, but Gordon took it like a man and accepted that it was what it was with the new points deal and format. Regardless, Johnson is in the record books and that's how it is. Too frickin bad NASCAR thinks a 10 race series is sufficient enough and should determine a champion. Just proves they have their heads remain up their asses! 

Oh, and maybe if Johnson "coasted", Gordon did to! LOL!

^^^^That's exactly what I was saying.    Any driver or team, with their place in the Chase assured already, can and will expirement when the emphasis.   I guarantee you there were times the 48 team was doing that.   Maybe not "coasting" but certainly trying stuff out that may or may not have been successful.    Again, you're assuming that tthe 48 team's results would have been exactly the same if they were running the old point system.   What if Johnson and Knaus ran the entire schedule with the same approach that they ran the Chase?    You think the results wouldn't have been different?   One thing you can't argue is that when the results counted who was in victory lane and had the championship trophy?    Nuff said....

I take it then that you like the chase and playoff system. I'm not ASSUMING a damn thing about what the 48 team's results were or weren't.  YOU'RE ASSUMING their points would have been different if the chase hadn't existed. The points were the points leading up to the chase, period. That's black and white fact. I would guess that in the last few races leading up to the chase that all the locked in teams probably tried some different things....not just the 48 team. You're also assuming that the 48 team ran the entire season differently than they did the chase. I do say BS to that.......the results for ten races were different and that's all there is. But anybody that thinks they risked not winning by holding back on their "good" equipment (as one poster put it) or by experimenting during the regular season is nuts. There's too much at risk doing that for cripes sake. And I'm not arguing that the 48 team won the title in the ten race series. They did. 

Well you know what they say about assuming, just makes an ass out of you and me both.    The only thing I really don't like about the current NASCAR system is the "winner take all" format in the very last race.   Beyond that, I really don't care one way or another.    

And no I'm not crazy.  My mother had me tested....

I wasn't singling you out, I was using the term nuts as reference. I'm not crazy either, but some things do make me nuts......

Agree!!   Gordon has 2 more minimum and Johnson has 4 max under the old system.  All this bullshit about Jimmie laying off?  No.  Gordon kicked his ass twice through the season and got bested by a stupid system.