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

Larson "identifies" as High Limit, and that's enough for you and the people you talk to.:)

(Also, see the HL rules about being weighed after winning a race). ;)

The format is fine and lapped traffic will enter in. Schatz from the rear along with Logan will be interesting . Larson and Pittman will have a headstart but anything can happen. From a spectators view like to see Larson start 24th .50 laps is a long race for sprint cars and mandatory red changes things. 40 laps with no stop would involve more fuel and tire management. No WOO or HL ali have same goal to race for big money.

For those new to sprint car racing at the upper levels: the cars are all weighed after time trials. Then, the one that matter are weighed, generally the first three finishers.

How do they line up the races for sat? Is it points from Wed and Thursday or do Friday races affect Sat line ups?

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

Rod, if you're seriously asking - Friday's top four finishers now comprise places 21-24 in Saturday's A Main. Friday's positions 5 back line up Saturday's B Main from 11th place on, in order. So fifth in Friday's A starts 11th in Saturday's B behind the 26 prelim lock ins and top four Friday lock ins.

Previous Nationals format saw the top 50 after prelims lock in and non-qualifiers night ran a full program to set position 11 in Saturday's C Main on back. 

Perfectly good question, cause Knoxville's website doesn't explain it. They say who makes the A, but not how they line up. The best explanation is in that little newspaper they hand out at Knoxville... I might have one buried in a box somewhere

They line up by points

Try and come up with some new material your stuff is old and played out. You really don't make any points, your like a little child who pissed his diaper when someone doesn't agree with you.

By definition he is a NASCAR driver. Get over it.

Have you ever realized that you turn everything into a pissing contest?

I was trying to get the discussion back to original topic, the FORMAT

& you don't have to be so touchy. I never called YOU dumb, I said it was a dumb argument

Nothing needs to be changed or tweaked or anything. It is fine. Sorry that some do not like qualifying or that it is emphasized or not emphasized or has too much or too little, get over it. All 3 factors in racing are factored in. Qualifying, heat races, feature. Mathematically they are factored fairly by math. And typically the ones who get in deserve to get in, and the best cars get to the top of the order. 

I've said for a few years that the 8 invert is old mentality and hanging onto the past too hard. 6 is the invert needed. Inverting 8 is sick when you go look back at the timing. And add to that a track that is unknown going into the heats after the timing. Back when, equipment was everything and only a number of big teams had it. Now, everyone rolls into the Nats with their best stuff. You simply cant invert 8 anymore and expect guys to ram their way to the front at the start. The START is really the whole race. You need to pass 2 cars by exit of turn 2 if you want to have a shot at making it out of the invert and into the A. Stop yelling the format is perfect. I'm as old school as they come, and I am here to say sometimes things need to change with the times.

Feel like a six invert could amplify the problems seen now. It's tightening not only speed gap among the invert, but also the points scoring. I'd think mathematically it would give the fastest qualifiers a better chance to directly lock in to a prelim A, but I'm honestly not 100% sure as generally speaking, the cars in front of them now would be more competitive and thus passing could be at more of a premium. 

Also feel like this could make a mess of points where qualifiers 11-30 have a better opportunity to score additional heat points and better starting positions in the prelim A to add better opportunity to score there. 

Lastly, it will make things for fast qualifiers who can't make it out of their heat but through the B very difficult - now the competition level of the prelim A is going to be filled with better drivers. 

I think a six invert would probably tighten things between the top 40-50 cars after prelims. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but I think it could make it more difficult to put up a 480+ score for the fastest cars. 

Put me down for "leave as is" for the 23rd year in a row.  Someone did make a good point that they would prefer an equal number of cars from Wednesday night and Thursday night.  I wouldn't be opposed to that small tweak.  Other than that, I'm in favor of no changes to the best format in the land.  

4 pages worth of opinions here and not even going to read them... I say it has worked for 60+ years, Leave it alone. 

Removing the Main Scrambles and going with the "Hard Knocks Friday" program was one of just a very few changes they made and it was a great change.

Adding a provisional spot a few years ago was one of the worst ideas!!!

Put me down for leave it alone, for the most part.  Only small change I'd like to see is Wednesday night are have odd # lock ins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25  in order and Thursday are the even lock ins, in order, 2, 4, 6 etc......  There were not alot of suprises for me on who was in/out. 

My pre nationals pool had 20 of the 24 that made the A.  Only ones that didn't make the A I had in my pool were PPM, Kofoid, Reutzel and Bayston.  They were replaced by Bogucki, Balog, Henderson and McFadden.

With the fast cars that were starting deeper, I was hoping for a better track to see some of those charges we have seen in recent years like Schatz winning out of the B, Shuchart from deep to podium, Gravel 21st to 2nd last year etc....  it just wasn't in the cards with the conditions this year, it happens. 

The top 6 in points full time High Rollers and 2 others (McFadden and Allen) made the A (8 of 16 for 50%)

7 of the top 8 in WoO (minus Kofoid)  Platinum Members made the A (7 of 12 for 58.3%)

Larson is Larson, Bacon repped USAC well and I think once he's broken the records he wants to break in USAC we see him more/full time on a tour?.  Knoxville had a good showing with many of their top teams Brown, Randall, Bogucki, Henderson (more Husets than Knoxville).  Posse's best with the 69k and Macri. Axom is doing a helluva job in his transition and him running a true outlaw schedule all over the place against WoO, HL, Knoxville etc... paid big dividends in shrinking his learning curve, I feel. 

As usual, the cream of the crop makes the A each year, with a couple of suprises making it and a couple suprisingly not making it, don't seem to be broke in any way that needs fixing.   

The above is solely my opinion, I sincerely apologize if the post offends anyone that identifies as a cheerleader.

I also apologize to anyone offended by the fact I receive a retirement from the Army after 21 years of getting to vacation on the tax payers dime in the wonderful hotspots like Haiti twice, Iraq twice, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia etc....  to you sir, I wish you the continued freedom to say stupid shit and still be able to eat solid foods. 

I'm in leave it as it is camp.. 

Thanks for your Service Brother, you went the extra mile above and beyond ! 

The older I get the faster I was.
All of my hard lessons have been learned at the speed of 
pain...

Thank you brother,

Thank you to you as well.

For those that want to leave it as is, and for those that comment about it being good for 60 years, are you also in favor of non Hi definition TVs? Do you still enjoy cables and boxes hooked up to your tv? Are you all for not having a cell phone, or if you have a cell phone do you enjoy the analog phone better than digital?   

I'm in the "lets try this tweak" camp & I hate most of that new fangled digital crap

Yes, I know I'm using it right now ;)

But it takes over too many simple things. I was trying to buy a hot dog at a local stand last summer &  they couldn't sell me one... "computer is down"... just take my $ & give me the damn hot dog!