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

A Season Points Championship should be just that! Accumutively how you did over the course of the whole Season.

I am curious if how the Points would have ended up under the old way? Would Larson have Lost, Won by a narrow margin or would he have won with a dominant  points lead? 

All the Congratulations to Kyle Larson, What a Racer, What a Champion.... Glad we get to witness what he is achieving in Motorsports. The only racer in History that can place a Nascar Cup Series, Knoxville Nationals, Kings Royal & Chili Bowl Trophy all on the Shelf from the same year... Pretty Unbelievable.

The only thing we have yet to see is what he would do in a Indy Car. Whether he ever does it makes no difference to me, Maybe he has no interest in it. I would find it VERY hard to believe though if Indy was where he put his focus on, All of the odd are there that he would end up an Indianapolis 500 Champion as well.... 

The big winners were Nascar and Hendrick organization and dirt track fans.The losers Chip,Ford and even Tony could have signed him.Not a Nascar fan but enjoy what this young man can do and his ability to drive any type on racecar. His year on dirt showed his ability and this was as popular win as any Nascar Champion has been.

They did show het shotgunning a beer at the 2019 NASCAR banquet

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=762632887588340

You are correct that Chip, Ford, and Tony were the big losers in this.  You are incorrect when you say Tony and Chip could have signed him.  They couldn't have unless they wanted to run the team out of their pockets.  Chip's sponsors made it very clear he was to be released.  Tony made it pretty clear by moving Chase Briscoe up instead of signing Kyle that there was pushback from his sponsor(s) that did not allow him to sign him.  (Ford?)  Everyone is asking a lot to assume Tony or Chip could afford to put Kyle in a seat with loss of sponsorship.  Rick can finance it.  Chip and Tony aren't Rick.  Thank God for Rick.  

NAPCAR, the only points system where you could win 35 out of 36 races, finish 2nd in the last race and not be the champion...

I didn't wake up nervous, don't care what his wife does in victory lane, and didn't watch and won't watch a single lap of NASCAR.    Not interested in anything Larson does unless it's in a sprint car.   

Agreed

I'm amazed this hasn't evolved into a "how good is Larson?" thread....

Too hard to compare with Andretti, Foyt & Parnelli Jones, since they raced in different eras & different categories, but for what he's actually tried, Larson is right up there with those guys, IMHO

If that example doesn't sum it up, I don't know what does.  

No doubt.  It was satisfying to hear some of the Nascar "experts" finally start to acknowledge what we are watching right now.  What is scary is, they didn't really get it about 3 years ago.  (The actual experts like Tony and Jeff got it) I prefer my experts don't have tunnel vision.  It didn't take Larson winning a championship for most of us to evaluate his talent.  For some reason, that win yesterday was their deciding factor.  Okay I guess.  All the win did yesterday was silence all of the nay-sayers in the Nascar crowd.  It did nothing to change my opinion that he is on the Mt. Rushmore of American racers.  

I used to watch Nascar back in the day.  I am with you on not being interested in nascar.   However, if it weren't for Larson, I would never even be remotley interested in Nascar.   I watched a little of yesterday's race.  I saw the man take the checkered and the trophy!

Let's go Sprint Car Racing!

Knoxville - Best Track In the USA!
Eldora - 2nd Best Track in the USA!

In the current format, you can literally win every race all season long while others fight to barely make the playoffs, and still come in 4th place in the series championship because a field filler took you out at Phoenix.  It would be hard to accept the championship if it were anywhere near a situation like that. 

Brandon McLain
United Sprint Car Series Driver
2014 Season
National Rookie of the Year!
National Points - 8th
Southern Points - 3rd
Asphalt Points - 3rd
18 Races, 3 Top 5's, 14 Top 10's

I do agree with you egras and think you made a good point.  One thing has changed after 2019.  Kyle has taken his racing to another level in the last 2 years.  Very few mistakes now, no brushing the wall with 5 to go, no putting the car into a spot that he can't make it out of, etc.  Not that he isn't just as agressive, but he has improved.  I think the 2020 racing season really focused him on what he needed to do to get better and start winning at the highest levels.  If Kyle was in the final four in 2019, he probably would have brushed the wall and been 4th.  Or he would have hit the wall at Knoxville and Donny would have won #11.  Not this year and not this Kyle.  Can he keep this level of focus?  Remains to be seen but I wouldn't bet against him at this point.

i think it was darrell waltrip on fox who used to act like larson's dirt background hurt him.  he didn't think he was built to be consistent over 500 miles let alone a full season of doing that.  it's amazing how nascar...the sport that prided itself on not looking down on everyone the way they felt f1 and indycar looked down on them...looks down on everyone else now.  

that's really where they started to go wrong.  i'm worried they're headed back down that path again with a gimmick race in la.  a race in a stadium is ok...but go back to your roots instead of having this dream of expanding your market.  

here's a breakdown of who would have won a title in the old points system vs. who actually won it...through 2018 anyway...

https://beyondtheflag.com/2018/10/04/nascar-cup-series-different-history-look-without-playoffs/

and also this season in the old system.  larson would have won with hamlin not too far behind...

https://beyondtheflag.com/2021/11/08/nascar-standings-2021-no-playoffs/

It seems like either the whole season counts, or you force the champ to be decided in the last race. Trying to do both could result in the above fiasco. 

Within hearing distance of Tri City Speedway

Last year's was close enough to that situation.

All systems after the 2003 season whether you call it the "chase" or the "playoff" system have sucked. While the old system (even though it had its tweaks throughout the years) from the 60's-2003 had some minor flaws, really there are only 3 seasons out of 40+ seasons that have outliers. 1973 & 2003 were the only years where the driver only had 1 win but it is not like that driver sucked the rest of the races.

1973 - While yes Parsons wins with 1win, he also is tied with the best avg finish. On the surface it does not look like a championship year but if you dive deep into the numbers of the WHOLE year, it does make sense as to why he won. Pearson while winning 11 times doesnt run 10races so that kind of DQ's him from the conversation to me, not taking away how impressive that is.

2003 - Skipping to this year as it aligns with 73 as an anomaly with a 1 win champion, it is also the year that ticks me off the most and is the main reason as to why Nascar is where it is today. A complete overreaction by Nascar because something out of the ordinary happened and because an owner (Penske) cried. While everyone brings up Ryan Newman won 8 times that year what they do not bring up is he failed to finish 7times finishing 37th or worst in those races, and finishing outside of the top 10 14times, 11 of those were 22nd or worst so I would not consider that a championship season. The other drivers that year was Johnson 2nd with 3wins, Jr 3rd with 2wins, Gordon 4th with 3, Harvick 5th with 1, Then Newman 6th with 8, Then Stewart and Labonte with 2wins each. So no one other than Newman set the world on fire that year win wise except Newman and when he wasn't winning he was wrecking or blowing up.

1996 there is an arguement but again, it is really the only real good one in 40+ years. And even then that year if you go in depth (sorry I know you're a Gordon fan so I have to do it) the difference that year was when Gordon was winning, Labonte was not that far behind him finishing in the top 5. When Gordon had a DNF it looks like Labonte took advantage

Really they only needed to make 1 adjustment. Increase the point disbursement between 1st & 2nd more (possibly between 5th & 6th 10th & 11th as well), and devalue the whole bonus point for leading a lap. But now they have created a circus over essentially 1 season that really was not a huge OMG something is wrong here and now have the races center around a championship instead of the championship being centered around the races. Thankfully yesterday the right guy won yesterday.

Great info.  Looks like larson would have essentially wrapped it up with 1 week to go with the old system.  Gordon would have been 'ole 7-time----not Jimmie fricken Johnson.  (the way it should have been as Gordon had more talent in his big toe than Johnson had in his entire body)

You are correct----It all went downhill the second Terry Bradshaw waved that green flag on Fox's first broadcast.  They took it from a serious sport, with character, to a clown-show like the Fox NFL Pregame.  

that would be a terrible cut in income. He is not that crazy.  He can make more in 1 nascar race than he can with a season of WOO

Careful linbob-----you're going to get bombarded by a bunch of people that think Larson saved up $30 million dollars---and that if he did, that would justify him running a WoO team out of pocket for the rest of his life.  Just warning you. ;)